Thursday, December 26, 2013
to the bus station. I bought my ticket to San Fran, spending half of the
fifty, and got on at two o’clock in the afternoon. Ed White waved
goodbye. The bus rolled out of the storied eager Denver streets. “By God
I gotta come back and see what else will happen!” I promised. In a last
minute phone call Neal said he and Allen might join me on the Coast; I
pondered this, and realized also I hadn’t talked to Neal for more than
five minutes in the whole time. Anyway I was gone, and this is what Neal
and Allen did. Neal concluded his business with his girls and the two
boys, giggling happily, and took off for Texas on the road. Someone in
Denver saw them going down South Broadway; Neal was running and jumping
to catch high leaves; Allen, according to the informant, “was making
notes about it.” This was the story told by Dan Burmeister, of whom more
later. They journeyed days and nights to Texas; in all that time they
didn’t sleep and talked continually. Nothing was left undecided and
undiscussed. On the highway, by Raton rocks, by windy panhandle grasses
at Amarillo, in the bushy heart of Texas, they talked and talked, till
arriving near Waverly, Texas, down near Houston where Bill Burroughs lived,
so much had been decided that they kneeled in the dark of the road,
facing each other, and made vows of eternal friendship & love. Allen
blessed him; Neal acknowledged. They kneeled and chanted till their
knees were sore. And as they wandered around the woods looking for
Bill’s house they suddenly saw Bill Burroughs himself loping along a
fence with a fishing pole. He’d been fishing in the bayou. “Well,” he
said, “I see you boys finally made it. Joan and Hunkey been wondering
where you’ve been.” “Is Hunkey here?” they cried joyously. “He’s been
here most conspicuously…” “Wow! Damn! Whoopee!” cried Neal. “Now I get
to dig Hunkey too! Less go, less go!” There began a series of events
there that ended up in New York at just the time I got back there
myself. But meanwhile I was rolling along in San Francisco and I’ll get
to them later. I was two weeks late meeting Henri Cru. The bus trip from
Denver to Frisco was uneventful except that my whole soul leaped to it
the nearer we got to Frisco. Cheyenne again…in the afternoon this
time…and then went over the rangelands; crossing the
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