Thursday, December 26, 2013
client was always drunk and having wild parties. When Brierly knocked on
the door the client was drunk upstairs. There was a drunken Indian in
the parlor, and Neal---ragged and dirty from recent work in a Nebraska
manure field---was screwing the maid in the bedroom. Neal ran down to
answer the door with a hardon. Brierly said “Well, well, what is this?”
Neal ushered him in. “What is your name? Neal Cassady? Neal you’d better
learn to wash your ears a little better than that or you’ll never get
on in this world.” “Yes sir,” said Neal smiling. “Who is your Indian
friend? What’s going on around here? These are strange goingson I must
say.” Justin W. Brierly was short bespectacled ordinary-looking
middle-west businessman; you couldn’t distinguish him from any other
lawyer, realtor, director on 17th and Arapahoe near the financial
district; except that he had a streak of imagination which would have
appalled his confreres had they but known. Brierly was purely and simply
interested in young people, especially boys. He discovered them in his
English class; taught them the best he knew in Literature; groomed them;
made them study till they had astounding marks; then he got them
scholarships to Columbia University and they returned to Denver years
later the product of his imagination - - always with one shortcoming,
which was the abandonment of their old mentor for new interests. They
went further afield and left him behind; all he knew about anything was
gleaned from what he’d made them learn; he had developed scientists and
writers and youthful city politicians, lawyers and poets, and talked to
them; then he dipped back into his reserve of boys in the high school
class and groomed them to dubious greatness. He saw in Neal the great
energy that would someday make him not a lawyer or a politician, but an
American saint. He taught him how to wash his teeth, his ears; how to
dress; helped him get odd jobs; and put him in high school. But Neal
immediately stole the principal’s car and wrecked it. He went to reform
school. Justin W. stuck by him. He wrote him long encouraging letters;
chatted with the warden; brought him books; and when Neal came out
Justin gave him one more chance. But Neal fouled up again. Whenever any
of his poolhall buddies developed a
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