Well, I left New York 1949.
To go across the country without a dad-blame dime.
Montana in the cold, cold fall.
Found my father in the gambling hall.
Father, Father where have you been?
Been out here in the world since I was 10.
Dear son, he said don't worry about me.
I'm about to die of pleurisy.
Cross the Mississippi, cross the Tennessee Cross the Niagara, home I'll never be.
Home in ol' Medora, home in ol' Truckee Apalachicola, home I'll never be.
For better or worse, through thick and thin.
Like being married to the little woman.
God loved me just like I loved him.
Wants you to do just the same for him.
Well, the worms eat away but don't worry, watch the wind.
The worms eat away but don't worry watch the wind.
So I left Montana in an ol' freight train.
The night my father died in the cold, cold rain.
Rode up to Opelousas, rode to Wounded Knee, Rode to Ogallala, home I'll never be.
Rode to Oklahoma, rode to El Cajon Rode to Tehachapi, rode to San Antone.
Home I'll never be Home I'll never be Home I'll never be.
ON THE ROAD
Got room for one more?
Yeah, sure, hop in.
There's room for everybody.
Alright.
Thanks, brother!
Whooooee!
Here we go!
Hang on, brother, hang on.
Where you guys from?
North Dakota.
We're headed for the harvest.
Thanks.
What about you?
Montana.
So, you going someplace, or you just going?
I guess I'm just going.
You got any money?
I got enough for a pint of whiskey till we reach Denver.
You reckon if we put them things in the ground, something will grow up?
If I get hungry enough, I plan to eat them raw!
I'll share them with you!
Aww.
Oh I got a pretty little girl.
She's sweet sixteen.
She's the prettiest little thing.
You ever seen.
I got a pretty little girl.
She's sweet sixteen.
She's the prettiest little thing.
You ever seen.
Oh I got a pretty little girl. She's sweet sixteen. She's the prettiest little thing I ever seen.
Five months earlier.
Leo Paradise loved many things.
Though part of him never left his native Quebec, when.
he moved to this country with his dear wife Gabrielle, he loved it with all his heart.
Now, he joins his departed son Gerard in a better place.
Are you all right?
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.
I'm all right.
I'm good.
I first met Dean not long after my father died.
I'd just gotten over a serious illness that I won't bother to talk about
except that it really had something to do with my father's death,
and my awful feeling that everything was dead.
"Let's go for a drink", says my buddy Sal.
But I show up and guess what? - No Sal Paradise.
A boring, brooding mute has been inserted in his place.
Oh really, Carlo.
Well, what's there to talk about exactly?
The book I'm not writing?
The inspiration I don't feel?
Even the beer's flat.
I mean, look around, man.
Everything's stultified.
True, but these are temporary worries.
Life is long and wondrous and strange.
Look at me, Sal.
I'm full of inspiration.
My mind is a veritable echo chamber of epiphanies.
Dig it "The air is dark.
The night is sad...
I'll get you another beer!
Bravo, very nice, Carlo!
Chad.
I've been looking all over town for you hoodlums.
How you doing, man?
Listen, remember that thing?
Jailbird friend of mine from Denver?
The one that stole 500 cars?
The one I've been raving about?
He didn't think we really believed that, did he?
First reports of Dean came to me through Chad King,
who'd shown me and Carlo a few letters from him,
written from a Colorado reform school.
Come on man, let's go!
The great Dean awaits!
Dean had arrived in New York.
He'd just married a 16- year-old chick named Marylou.
New York, 1947.
Come on, gentlemen.
One more.
Well, now, look who's at my doorstep, old Chad King!
How's it going, cowboy?
I'm Sal.
Sal.
Strong grip.
Yes, yes, yes!
Sal and Carlo, the writer pals.
I've heard all about you gone cats.
We're going to orient you into the Nietzschean ways of the big bad city.
And smoke your weed, of course.
Well, yes, we got plenty of that!
Marylou, why don't you get on the ball and make us some coffee?
My writer friends are here Come on in.
Hey hey!
Take your shoes off.
Yeah?
No, I'm just kidding.
Cry to hear folks chatter
And I know you cheat
Right or wrong don't matter
When you're with me, sweet...
Yes...
You'll never get this one.
Yipra
That's not a song.
Yipra (etc.
Slim Gaillard
Yes, yes, yes!
Slim it is.
Dean.
Some of us need the occasional doughnut to survive
Ah, "the occasional doughnut".
I just love this gal!
Yipra!
And wake up, Chad King.
Thanks.
It's nice to have someone paying attention.
I mean, it's really nice having someone pay attention!
You know, I never met a girl before who could roll tea.
Oh yeah?
Yipra...
My friend!
Swann's Way
The day before my father died, he took hold of my hand and he looked at it.
And he said, "You got no calluses, Sal.
That's because you don't do any real fucking work, boy!
"Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
My old man's still lost.
Just wandering the hobo streets of Denver like...
like shit.
To the old men
Yeah.
To the good, old, dead, demented men we love.
And to the West.
There you go
It wasn't only because I was a writer and needed new experiences that I wanted to know Dean more.
But because somehow he reminded me of some long lost brother.
In the West, he'd spent a third of his time in the pool hall, a third in jail, and a third in the public library.
All my New York friends were giving their tired, bookish political or psychoanalytical reasons for being in the negative.
But Dean just raced in society.
I began to learn from him as much as he probably learned from me.
Oh yeah
Here's a cat who can really bend his girl, man!
Do you even know what we witnessed right there, Sal?
That tenor-man has it.
You see, he starts with the first chorus,
then lines up his ideas, rises through his fate,
and then suddenly, somewhere in the middle of the chorus, he gets it.
Everybody looks up and knows.
Time stops.
He has to blow across bridges and come back with such infinite feeling for the tune of the moment,
that everyone knows that it's not the tune that counts, but it.
"It-man", can I buy you that drink?
Make that three.
I'll buy you one.
Alright.
Thanks What's your name, man?
They want to know my name!
There's some boys from work.
Hi, boys from work.
Howdy.
So, where was I?...
So there's this whore house.
There's this monkey at the door.
So you...
you place your bet in the cage, you know, and the monkey rolls the cage around, and the dice roll out...
And if you win, you get the girl for free.
But if you loose to that monkey, you gonna get your backside "bitched"!
By the monkey!
Now that's an evolution.
"Sodom and Gorilla".
I ain't telling no lie!
That's cool.
So what is it like being with a white woman?
I always wondered.
I'd say it's like...
You never been with a white woman before?
Been with a white man.
Ozone Park, Queens.
Come in, man.
Memere!
C'est I'bon gars que j'tai parle.
Le chum a Chad, de Denver.
Howdy 'do, Ma!
Hello.
You look just like her.
Come on, man.
Where's Marylou?
Oh, man.
We get into a big ruckus, so she calls the cops on me.
Then she whores a few bucks together and heads back to Denver.
Whoa, really?
Yeah.
You know, I'm planning on heading back, too.
When?
You know, soon.
Anyways, before I go, I absolutely have to learn how to write from you.
Well, I'm honored, man, but I...
Show me how!
Alright?
I want to learn.
Teach me.
Alright, then.
Alright, let's see.
"The cowboy thinks I'm some kind of genius.
He's leaning over my shoulder right now.
We gotta forget the Western stuff.
Turn ourselves into the Eastern jazz.
What about.
Hey.
I was walking down 125th street and suddenly I stopped.
I looked at everything in amazement.
It was like I'd just woken up from a dream that had lasted my whole life,
and I realized that God isn't somewhere out there in Heaven, he's right here.
Yes.
In the dirt.
He's an ape like us.
Buh.
And I shambled after as usual, as I have done my whole life, after the people that interested me.
'Cause the only people that interest me are the mad ones.
The ones who are mad to live, mad to talk,
desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn and say a commonplace thing,
but burn, burn, burn, like Roman candles across the night.
BUS TRAFFIC ANNOUNCEMENT ... service from Albany and Poughkeepsie...
is now arriving at door number 3...
Come on.
Yes, Ma'am.
Where did you get the suit?
11 dollars on 3rd av'.
Come on, guys, concentrate.
Let's see.
For you.
And I'll keep this one.
Sal, Sal, Sal
I'll miss you guys.
To the West-orooni!
To the West-orooni.
Don't forget to write, Carlo.
Don't do anything I wouldn't do!
I will.
Alas, alas, Sal.
It's not me, I'm drunk.
But my soul talking direct soul language, so to speak, to my deepest blood brother and holy goof-that's you.
And to be formal and analytical about it, let me objectify the characteristics I miss the most of you.
Number 1 your conversation.
Number 2 your brotherly smile, man.
But I shall go on, so to close and get the gist Denver waits for you.
Carlo in his damp grotto and clowned Misery -to use a paradox of Expression -waits for you, so get on it!
Be quick and hurry to me, no delay.
Long dash.
Bring Paradise to Denver.
And I love you as ever.
Dean.
Drunk.
With the coming of Dean Moriarty, began the part of my life you could call "My life on the Road".
Before that, I'd often dreamed of going West -always vaguely planning but never cutting out.
I was a young writer, trying to take off.
43 W80 C degrees in Clarion...
Dawson County, Nebraska.
Now what species are you?
Traveler.
I appreciate the lift.
...It might be your last!
I'm freighting dynamite.
You looking for that toe?
They amputated it this morning.
You can't smoke, but you can drink in this car.
Alright Thanks.
Follow me, I'm right behind you.
Did it hurt?
I don't recommend it!
voice of Shoot I gotta take me a piss.
A truck with a flat board at the back with about six or seven boys sprawled out on it.
Piss call.
Woo-ee!
Here we go!
yelled the kid in the baseball cap.
We been riding this son of a bitch since Des Moines!
These guys never stop!
Every now and then you have to yell for piss call, otherwise you have to piss off the air and hang on brother, hang on!
Denver, Colorado
Thanks a lot, guys
N IN THE STREET I know, it's.
I hope you're not paying rent on this place!
Oh, my angel-headed Sal is here at last!
Good to see you.
You, too.
So, what are you doing?
I mean.
What exactly are you doing?
I am vacuuming at May Company by day.
Uhmm...
Impressive.
...I know.
And chasing our beloved, feral, mad dog by night.
And where is Dean?
What's the schedule?
So, I got off work a half hour ago.
At that time, Dean is screwing Marylou at the hotel.
At one sharp, he goes from Marylou to Camille, the new girl.
Of course, neither knows what's going on, but he screws her once, giving me time to arrive at 130.
Then we go out for our unfinished business until 6 in the morning.
"Unfinished business"?
Dean and I are trying to communicate with absolute honesty and completeness everything in our minds.
We do it on Benzedrine.
And then at 6, he goes back to Marylou and spends the rest of the day
running around trying to sort out the necessary papers for the divorce.
All that he wants to do is go back to San Francisco and marry Camille.
It's sick!
And I bet she's incredibly ugly.
Like Helen of Troy with a fucking brain.
What are you doing?
Camille really hates me right now.
Why, Sal!
Yes, you've arrived!
You finally got on that old road, didn't you?
I did.
Look here, Camille, it's my good buddy Sal from New York.
Sorry for not getting up, Sal, but I wasn't expecting company at this hour.
I'm sorry.
I should leave.
It's Sal's first time in Denver and I think it's absolutely necessary for me to take him out and fix him up with a girl.
Right now?
I should be back no later than 314 for our hour of reverie, darling.
Works all day, runs around all night.
He never eats, he never sleeps...
Ain't she something?
The man thinks he's Superman.
Yeah.
As I said, not 3 but 314.
Now are we straight in the most wonderful and deepest depths of our soul, dear darling?
Is he offering me a choice?
I don't think he's offering you a choice, no.
Hee-hee!
Yes.
You look like a smart guy.
I bet you're wondering what he sees in me, huh?
Respectability?
Very good.
I'm impressed.
Let's go to work, babies.
So now that you're sleeping with half of Denver, are there any girls left for me?
Well now listen here, Sal.
I know a girl named Rita and Rita cannot wait to meet you.
We'll go there at once!
I thought we were going to talk.
Yes, yes, after.
If you want to know my true nature, at this moment?
I'm one of those people who goes around showing his cock to juvenile delinquents.
Oh, these Denver doldrums...
Isn't he the finest, smartest fellow in the world?
You know that old guy?
I thought it was my pops.
Carlo, wait up!
Voila.
Darling.
Bless me father, for I will sin.
Yum, yum, yum
It's nice to have you boys.
What's so funny, my boy?
I'm checking my pulse.
Round two-sie, here we go!
It happens.
My hands...
Mine does.
I was filled with guilt.
I thought he said she was my girl.
Nothing for you or me, Sal.
Everything and everyone for that faithless bitch!
Guess who I hear!
Carlo, come on.
No.
Come on.
No.
Come on.
No.
Come on.
No no no no no
Sal No No.
Sal Argh.
Rebop Sal, come on.
Yeah-oh...
No clothes party.
You enjoying?
Yeah, but now I'm finishing up my degree here in Denver.
Dean told me you do, uh, set design...
Set design, yeah.
That's interesting.
The one I enjoyed most designing was, uh, "Desire Under the Elms".
It's a great play.
Yeah.
Eugene O'Neill.
Yeah, I know it's Eugene O'Neill, Carlo.
Thank you.
There's like a rusty nail scratching across my goddam spinal cord.
Dean, "I've got the world on a string"?
Yes, you do.
Come on!
Don't tell me you New York intellectuals don't dance
I've got the world on a string, sitting on a rainbow.
Got the string...
around my finger... Oh, what a world, what a life, I'm in love...
You didn't say you had a nice voice.
I don't have a nice voice.
Yeah.
Yeah, you do.
Thanks.
Are you staying in Denver very long?
I got the feeling I won't be staying very long.
Yeah.
"Not enough hours in the day.
"Right.
then.
singing along.
What a world, what a life, I'm in love...
"Assuming for yourself the sorrow of my body
Thus, when you solace me in my desire
I held your body, and lay beside it sleeping
Feeling the pain of your own inward fire"
"Weeping myself to hear your silent weeping".
Has Dean read this?
I've gotten so crazy over Dean that all his stupid friends call me "Carlo in Wonderland".
Clever, huh?
Ah, yes...
They don't understand this is the first time actual sex has been...
part of my relationship with a man.
This is how you love.
I'm not in fucking wonderland.
I know it's not a man he wants.
I even told him we can take sexuality out of it, just...
"Be with me, man.
Hold me.
Just call me."
And he always promises, "Yes, Carlo, yes, man - I'll call you.
I'll call you."
Who the fuck am I kidding?
I can't even call what I feel "a heartache", it's too banal.
"Melancholy" is too languorous.
"Grief" is closest.
I'm 21.
By the time I'm 23 I'm going to write one great poem.
Then it's all over for me.
Sal, I'm leaving.
I'm going to Africa.
A la Rimbaud, non?
I might jump ship at Dakar.
I'm gonna smoke opium.
And I will pick up dark, mysterious men.
And they will love me.
I really wish I could drink whiskey like a man.
I know those guys are like, "Hey, do a shot!"
Home in Missoula, Home in Truckee, Home in Opelousas, Ain't no home for me.
Home in ol' Medora, Home in Wounded Knee, Home in Ogallala, Home I'll never be.
Excuse me, miss.
I can't seem to find an empty seat anywhere.
May I?
If you wish.
I'm Sal.
Terry.
Selma, California.
No tienes hambre?
Que pasa Papa?
You want to love me now?
Cesar 1,20.
Matilde 1,10.
Terry 1,15.
Terry.
Sal 1,05.
Sal.
Maria 1,15.
You growing roots?
Jasmine 1,10.
The harvest is ending, and it's getting much colder in the nights.
Terry and I bitterly decided we'd have to leave.
She was supposed to come to New York in a month with her brother, but we both knew she wouldn't make it.
I can feel the pull of my own life calling me back.
I still have a book to write.
We screw one more time, then you leave...
See you in New York, Terry!
Wait.
Thanks.
You know what they did to me in that prison?
Solitary confinement, and a Bible.
I used it to sit on the stone floor.
But when they seen that I did that, they took away that Bible,
and they brought back a little pocket size one, like so big, and I couldn't sit on it.
You know why I been in prison my whole life?
When I was 13 years old, I was in a movie with a boy, and he makes a crack about my mother.
You know, that dirty word.
So I take out my jackknife and I cut up his throat.
I would have killed him if they hadn't drug me off.
The judge says "Henry, you know what you were doing when you attacked your friend?"
I say, "Yes sir, Your Honor, I want to kill that son-of-a-bitch."
And I still do.
Bah!
J'suis revenu rien qu'd'un morceau, memere!
Penses-tu qu'fa m'fait quelqu'chose?
Vieille sorciere!
It was over a year before I saw Dean again.
I stayed home most of the time, struggling with a half- finished manuscript on my desk.
Bored with all of it.
RECORD SONG I used to love you But it's all over All over now.
Sal's sister's house, North Carolina, December 1948.
Ma, on behalf of Nin and I, I just wanted to say that.
"ton gateau est fantastique!"
Thank you Hey, eh, eh.
Listen to this General Douglas MacArthur bans kissing on the streets of Tokyo.
Who does that puritanical old fart think he is?
Sal.
Ho, ho, ho Oh hello, merry, merry...
Dean, I'll be goddamned!
You're early...
Yeah, well...
Shit Who's in the car?
Oh, it's Marylou and my good pal Ed Dunkel.
Anyways we need a place to clean up immediately.
Man, we're dog tired.
Sure.
How did you get here so fast?
That Hudson goes!
Yeah?
Where did you get it?
I bought it out of my savings.
I was working as a breakman on the Southern Pacific making 400 bucks a month.
And guess what?
I'm a father now!
What?
You and Marylou?
No, not Marylou.
Camille!
I annulled Marylou, hitched up with Camille, and now we have a sweet little Amy.
And a nice little pad in 'Frisco.
But as God as my witness, Marylou is the only honey-cunt I'll ever adore.
That makes perfect sense.
Dunkee!
Dig this, Sal.
Crazy Cat gets married and dumps his wife off in Tucson!
Come in, come in.
Holy shit.
We really appreciate this, man.
There's no heater in that California car.
We haven't eaten in 30 hours.
Or slept in a bed since...
Denver?
We don't have a penny, one.
Good times on the Dean Express, huh?
Well, there's lots of food inside for everybody.
Oh great, thanks.
Look at all them books.
Hi.
Hey.
How are you Marylou?
I'm fine.
But I gotta tell you how nice it is to see a sane face.
Well, uh, sane is a very relative term around here, kid.
Don't call me that anymore, because that bastard aged me.
Isn't that a great game to grab ass!
If you want food, it's on the left.
Yum, yum, yum, yum.
Ma, to repay your gregarious hospitalities and all the trimmings on this fine day of holiday giving,
I will drive you and Sal up to old mad New York so you won't have to pay for a train.
How about that, Ma?
Ok...
S. sorry.
You don't know that feeling, man.
I stole a.
38 and I sat in the car, gun on my temple for 14 hours, Sal, trying to pull the trigger and I couldn't do.
And I'm sweating.
And I'm nauseous.
And Camille finds me this way, and I beg her to do it.
To kill me.
And she couldn't, man.
I don't know what's wrong with me.
I do all these dumb things and I think in all these distorted ways, you know, I'm burning up.
I'm scared I'm gonna lose all the wisdom I ever learned, Sal.
You know, I see a girl and I just,... you know, I just tremble all over and I get lost!
Like a couple weeks ago.
I meet this black boy, right?
He's 25 and he's staying with his sugar mama, and we're digging some great music and we're getting high.
And then I meet the greatest gone gal, Suzie, right.
Oh, Suzie!
And I swear she's a virgin.
So I take her back to the black boy's place and 3 hours later she's getting a little drunk,
and the greatest show in the world starts, you know.
And she does this dance for us.
She takes off her panties, she leaves on her dress, and she stands on her head and she does the splits,
you know, and she's screaming the whole time "I want your cock!"
right, "I need your cock!"
And she goes over next to the bed and she spreads the black boy's knees open
and pulls out his big black beauty and starts chugging on that, going on that thing, really going at it.
Spreads the black girl's knees open and starts going down on her big black hairy muff, you know.
Getson the bed and does a whole other miraculous splits, you know.
Comes over to me, swallows me up.
Grabs the black boy's ears, pulls him down on her.
Black girl grabs me and its a goddam four-way orgy, Sal.
Goes on for four fucking hours.
God And I missed this?
Yeah.
It's good to have family, isn't it?
Goddammit!
You see, one day that little kid's gonna throw a rock through a guy's fucking windshield
and he's going to crash and die all on account of that little piss-pants?
See what I mean?
God exists without qualms.
South Hill, Virginia.
Coming up next Mike Sullivan covers the weather for your...
going to be up for some low...
Stop.
Que c'est qu'il fait?
Hein?
Comme dit le President Truman.
"We have to cut down on the cost of living."
Whooooaooo!
Man, oh, man, we must absolutely find some time for kicks in New York!
Carlo's back from Africa.
We all get to see Carlo first thing in the morning, darlings.
Lady, you shouldn't let your son drive that fast in these conditions.
You're in my state, you slow down.
I'll pay you back every cent, Ma.
Oh, you're fucked now, Dean.
But all I'm saying in the sincerities of my soul is that I miss you, darling, and I'll be right back in those arms.
Look, I got your postcard from Denver.
Do you think I'm an idiot?
I know Denver means Marylou.
Marylou who?
Come on, Sweet Cakes.
You know there are certainties our minds can grasp.
Oh shut up!
I never want you back!
Don't you dare come back here!
Ever!
This is the new and complete Dean, grown to his own definition of maturity.
I say to myself, "My God, he's changed!"
Fury spits out of his eyes when he tells of things he hates.
Great glows of joy replace this when suddenly he gets happy.
Every muscle lives to twitch and go.
Sal
Yeah?
Phone for you.
Thanks.
Hello?
Sal Paradise?
Bull calling you from New Orleans.
Bull Lee?
How the hell are you?
Well, we have ourselves a situation that needs immediate rectifying.
I've got a girl down here just showed up on my doorstep.
This Galatea Dunkel is looking for some clown named Ed Dunkel, and I don't know who the hell these people are.
Uh, Galatea and Ed are friends of Dean's from Denver.
Oh, shit Dean...
Well, she wants to talk to you.
Make it fast, would you?
The telephone cartels don't do this for free.
Hello, its Galatea.
Is Ed there?
Uh, Ed's fine, but he's sleeping.
Well, would you please tell him to come and get me.
Mr. Lee and his wife don't seem all that happy to have me around.
And I should kill Ed for what he did to me, dumping me here like this!
And he's simply got to come and get me as soon as he can!
He's got to help me, these people are mad They're mad!
Well, we'll be there right after New Years.
Thank you.
Mmm hmm.
Dynamite!
Look at that!
Oh my!
I'm telling you, she's cross-eyed.
She's not looking at you, it's me.
I was twenty days at sea in the doldrums, uh, when I decided to kill myself.
And I realized that shit, I haven't written a fucking suicide note!
I'm going over, you know, searching my mind for the right words,
and then I saw all of the crew coming out onto the deck,
and I couldn't jump anymore.
But, in that moment, I resolved to follow my heart.
To live.
Yeah.
To experience the wisdom of life,
Yes.
mad with ecstasy and vengeance and truth.
I'm glad I did, because otherwise I would have missed out on this amazing pot.
So!
On that, on that note, everybody move their feet like you feel something, like you're alive!
Like we're alive!
And on that, I want us to raise our glasses, being alive, to living, and to life.
and others To life
Salt peanuts, salt peanuts!
Where do you find such absolutely wonderful people?
I've never seen anyone like that.
She's the real mad one!
with Seven!
Six!
Five!
Four!
Three!
Two!
One!
Happy New Year
1949!
Happy New Year!
Love you as ever, Sal.
Whatever man.
Love you.
What have you got?
Hell of a night!
Happy New Year...
I love you...
Sal, I have something to ask of you, very important.
Uh-uh.
I wonder how you'll take it.
We're buddies, aren't we?
Yeah?...
Carlo's apartment, Harlem.
Sal said yes, my darling.
Sal, that's great.
Well, hop in, the water's fine.
What?
Fuck, I can't do this!
Come on, man.
You promised.
Do you really want to do this, Marylou?
She thinks it's swell.
What?
Now, come on now, we have to just all goddam relax!
Dean.
Can you go wait in the kitchen?
Like now, please?
Honey, he just wants to see what it would be like.
I told him that I wouldn't do that with any guy but you.
Well, you can still change your mind.
Very good.
Gee.
Write that down.
I got it.
So Ed, why did you abandon Galatea in Tucson?
She's your wife.
What are you doing wandering around the country like this?
Dean, why did you leave Camille and pick up Marylou?
What are your womanly intentions?
And, what is this mad obsession you have with him?
What is this mad obsession you have with him?
Touché!
Days of wrath are coming my friends.
This high you're on is a mirage.
You're all going to go flying off to the West Coast and come crashing down to earth.
Like this, Carlo?
Yeah, Dean.
Exactly like that.
Alrighty, who's hungry?
We were leaving confusion and nonsense behind, and performing our one noble function of the time move.
New Orleans and ol' Bull Lee.
Then West.
It would take all night to talk about ol' Bull Lee.
Let's just say now he was a teacher.
And he had every right to teach, 'cuz he spent all his time learning.
Now listen darling.
You know that I'm capable of everything at the same time, and I have unlimited energy.
So now when we get back to San Francisco we must absolutely go on living together.
I know just the place for you to live.
I'll be home every night and be at Camille's by the morning.
We've done it before, see, she'll never know.
Communism subjects the individual to arrest without lawful cause.
It decrees what information he shall receive, what art he shall produce.
Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral...
Shit.
Ed, slow down.
Underpants.
Do you guys think you can rush through here as fast as you want 'cuz you're from California?
Don't worry officer, we're heading back to California.
I need everybody to step out of that car, please.
How old are you, young lady?
I'm eighteen.
Who's that guy you're with?
My husband.
I've got the certificate right in the back if you want to see it.
Who you all in such a hurry to see out there in California?
My wife.
Your wife?
This one here just said she's your wife.
She's my ex-wife.
What the hell you doing with your ex-wife?
You're going out to see your wife!
That's not important.
Hey boy!
You gonna waltz in here and tell me what's important?
It's gonna be 25 dollars for speeding.
Or what?
Or I can run you in right now and slap a special California-boy charge on your ass.
Yeah?
What charge?
Don't you worry about it, wise guy.
That guy's got it so goddam easy!
They'll out and shoot you if you complain, too.
I wish I had a fucking gun!
Dunkel, you are not driving anymore.
Marylou, spread those knees and lets smoke some weed.
It was my father's.
It works.
Thanks a lot.
Flomaton, Alabama
Don't know...
When it comes to buying a gift or it comes to buy a present,
I never have to wonder, I never have to thunder.
If it's a wedding present, if it's an engagement present, if its a shower,
it it's a husband who wants to buy his wife something, I know exactly what to say...
I go to...
Like President Truman says.
"You have to cut down on the cost of living."
Yes, yes we do.
I'm telling you it's true Sal, I started at 9.
With a girl named Millie Mayfair!
That's when my old man was barbering a bit still.
Oh honey Marylou, if only I'd known you then, how sweet you must have been at 9!
Hey, here's another one for you Sal.
One time I jumped a freight from New Mexico clear to LA.
And I was 11.
I lost my father along the side, and we were staying in a hobo jungle and I hadn't seen him for months.
So, by the time I get to LA I'm so starved for milk that I get a job right in the dairy
and straight off drink 2 quarts of heavy cream and just puke
Poor, tragic Dean
So Dunkel, I suppose you're happy to get back to your wife.
Algiers, Louisiana
Bull?
Jane?
Hello?
Bull?
That sounds like the angel Sal Paradise.
How are you?
Fair.
Hi Jane!
We finally brought Ed Dunkel with us.
Is Galatea home?
Excuse me.
Lizards.
Ed?
Hi, Galatea
Get out of my sight!
You're an animal!
I guess I'll go help the missus sweep the tree.
Ass!
You're Sal, right?
It depends.
Do you know what these bastards did to me?
Dean leaves his wife and baby penniless because he wants to visit you.
And Ed, being a sheep wants to tag along.
Only they have no money!
So Ed asks me for the money, and I say, "I'm not giving you any unless we're married."
And Dean says, "Hey, Ed, stupid ass.
Marry the broad!
"No, I do love you too, honey...
Shut up!
So he marries me for gas fare!
And we get in the car, and Dean drives like Satan,
smoking marijuana the whole way,
and they won't even let me stop to use the ladies room.
And when I say something about it, they dump me in Tucson. In Tucson!
Come on, Galatea.
I mean.
Dean will be dead some day and then what can you say to him?
The sooner he's dead, the better.
Where were you going?
Can't I watch you guys screw?
Honey, I'm sorry.
A week, a couple of weeks.
I just thought...
You just thought what?
You could just leave me here in this house with strangers?
"Old woman, old woman, old woman, quoth I,"
"Oh whither, oh whither, oh whither so high"
"To brush the cobwebs off the sky"
"Shall I go with thee?"
I would go with her.
We could go together, and we could brush the cobwebs from the sky.
"By and by, by and by."
What the hell has he ever done to anyone?
Well, he drove my mother halfway across the country.
Did he?
Yeah.
Nah...
Dean does not feel responsibility towards others.
He does not know the concept.
Then again, he feels others have some mysterious obligation to support him.
No, I'm OK, Bull.
I find it unspeakably distasteful.
But Dean gives everyone a damn good time just being himself
He gives illusions.
Tricks.
Maybe that's because you're not seeing what's really holy about Dean.
So he's a holy man now!
A religious figure in your eyes!
Argh, Paradise...
Aren't you a pretty little bird?...
What I see in him is compulsive psychosis.
Dashed with a jigger of psychopathic irresponsibility and violence.
Well, young man, I do believe the cocktail hour is upon us.
Now this nation is dead in its soul and we do nothing.
All we do is wait, for the end to come.
See?
She knows.
The female always knows.
And the end of the world will start here, too.
In Texas.
Louisiana.
Louisiana and Texas.
This is an outstanding martini.
Yes.
May I?
Please.
Mmm Mmm.
That is an outstanding martini.
You know that a bat, when they suck the blood out of things squirrels, and...
Dad, draw a face.
Dad draw a face.
They got teeth, long teeth, that's what they stick in the squirrels and then they suck the blood out of them.
What's their names?
I think, uh, Lorraine is a good name for a bat.
That's Lorraine
I need some wings on it like that, ain't that right, you little beast?
Here the toes.
I'm gonna sell it for a lot of money.
Money...
Translation is indeed treason.
I got him.
In English you got him saying "fingers rummaging...
person...
in his pockets".
Celine did not write that.
He wrote, "Hands in assholes and pockets."
Uh.
Well, um, if you could push it away from here.
Away, um, the crumbs.
So, how's it been with Ed?
I don't know how to do it.
How to make him happy.
Oh, it's simple really, honey, all you have to do is...
Okay, I'm.
Here is you, here's him, right here.
palm of your hand.
I mean, with mouth, but he'll be in the palm of your hand.
Boys always love that.
You'll love it too, I promise.
Merci
Now, something can and should be done to eliminate the black seed of noxious effluviants gestating in our unsuspecting gut.
I give you the orgone accumulator!
Captures the vibratory atmospheric atoms of the life principal.
Folks get cancer 'cuz they run out of orgone.
Come on!
You gotta try it with me.
It'll put some juice in your bones, I'm telling you.
I always rush up and take off 90 miles to the nearest whore house!
All right, oh hey, look at that, see how big he got?
See that, not an inch of cancer!
Let's crank her up.
And don't let the cocksuckers get you down
Looks like a fucking closet
The purity of the road.
The white line in the middle of the highway unrolled, and hugged our left front tire as if glued to our groove.
Dunkel, Dunkle, who's gonna shepherd you now?
Here are a couple bucks for you.
You know you don't have to do that, Bull.
It's alright, it's only money.
Thanks.
Don't forget to write!
I won't.
Bye, brother.
Dean, you keep her out of the ditch!
And zoom went the car!
And we were off again - for California.
Hey, listen to this one, Sal.
"'Not caring for their lives' is it?
Why, what in the world is there that we should care
for if it is not our lives, the only gift the Lord never offers us a second time."
What do you think about that one, Sal?
Welcome.
I'll be right with you.
Thanks.
Willcox, Arizona
Can't you wait 'til we're in Frisco?
I don't care.
Dean's gonna leave me anyway.
When are you going to go back to Denver?
I don't know.
I don't know what I'm gonna do.
I could go back to my fiancé.
Fiancé?
He's a sailor.
He's been away awhile.
He's.
he's nice.
That's good.
I wish Dean wasn't so crazy now.
You could be wishing that the rest of your life!
I just want a house.
A baby.
You know, something normal.
I really do want that.
I just had a great idea, you guys are gonna love it.
Is everybody absolutely comfortable?
You alright Sal?
(Yeah.
"For it always happened when I woke like this and my mind struggled in an unsuccessful attempt
to discover where I was, everything would be moving around me through the darkness, things, places, years.
My body still too heavy with sleep to move."
How much money you got, kid?
Nothing.
But I got an aunt in Tulare, California.
She owns a grocery store and as soon as we get there, I'll have money for you all.
Yes, yes, we all got aunts, well let's go jump in back,
let's see the aunts and uncles and grocery stores all away across the road to get our kicks.
I'm Alfred.
Sal.
Hi.
Marylou.
Hi.
Alfred.
Hot damn, I left Bakersfield in a travel bureau car, left my guitar in the trunk of another one.
It never showed up.
Guitars and cowboy duds.
How much you got?
How much you want?
I knew a man, he forgave his wife for shooting him and got her out of jail.
Only, she shoots him a second time!
That's a good one
Hold on to your girdles
Baby!
Yes, yes, yes
Had my finger on the trigger so long
Seems like I'd shoot again by now
So hard when you can't stand the sound
I gathered your remains, cleaned up the stains
I took care for we once were friends
But it's hard when you're burning in a hell
And it's hard enough to be in love
And it's hard, ain't it hard, to love what you kill
San Francisco, California
Alright.
Go, hurry!
Really, you better make it to Camille's in time for dinner so she can feed your lazy ass!
Do you see what a bastard he is?
By the end of the week, darling.
Thank you.
Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop!
Darling Sal, I'm going back to Denver, to my fiancé the sailor.
No more road for me.
Thanks for an amazing night, my sweet lover.
Why don't you kick Dean in the ass if you ever see him again.
I love you.
P.S.
Good luck with your book.
What the hell you looking at?
Campbell, California
Yoshi.
Brada.
Rodriguez.
Luigi.
Sal.. Shit, no. Oh oh oh
How the hell are you, man?
Better than you, my boy.
Have you eaten these last few months?
Not as much as you, fat ass!
Family man, huh?
Yeah.
How's Camille?
She's good, she's just resting.
Where's the Hudson?
Yeah.
Man, it's so beat I had to leave it on Market Street for the vultures.
Oh, shit.
And Marylou?
That dumb little box married one of her sailors.
And he's threatened to kill me if he finds me, so I'm gonna have to defend myself
and kill him and go to San Quentin for life.
That would be the end of me.
Oh, come on
How's your ma?
Still waiting for that 15 bucks you owe her!
Yeah, one day...
Guess what.
I'm gonna be a father again.
Really?
Yeah.
Sweet little Amy, she can stand alone for 30 seconds, she's 22 pounds and 29 inches long.
And I found out that she's 31 one fourth percent English,
27 and a half percent German,
27 percent Irish, 8 and three fourths percent Dutch,
7 percent Scotch and one hundred percent wonderful.
Yes.
Hush.
Ahh, heebie jeebies!
We gotta find ourselves some kicks.
Sal's here.
I heard.
He wants to take me out to hear some music.
You wish to come?
Who's gonna stay here and take care of Amy?
Alright then, I'll just go.
Dean, don't make yourself feel better by asking me along
I'll be back in a little bit.
Sal!
By Marylou's cunt, it can't be!
What?
That's 1.10 a ticket and a dime each for the jackets.
Can I hear a vouchii?
Vouchii!
Can I hear a sharooni mo' mo' mo' mo' mo'?
Sharooni mo' mo' mo' mo'!
You left out one mo'!
Let me hear that last mo'!
Mo'!
No way
Yip-rok!
Hereesi!
Look at that, Slim knows time, Sal!
He knows time!
Thank you!
But most important my sure-ooni mo' loves you!
Goodness!
Oh my goodness!
You are the bee's knees.
Wanna take you home and wake up with fleas.
Please, say hello to my future ex-wife!
Hey, Camille!
Congratulations on the baby.
If you.
Sal, excuse me.
Dean, I need to talk to you.
I want you to get out.
Just go.
Just get out.
Now, honey...
No.
You said you were going to take care of us and you were done fooling around.
I know that look on your face, Dean.
You're bored.
You're sick of me, and you're sick of work, and the baby.
I wanna.
I just want you to take your friend and get out of my house.
Do you realize how much I've given up for you?
I never want you back.
I never want to see you again!
I'll see you very soon, I promise.
Don't you dare lie to her, too.
You're a liar.
Liar... Liar...
I realized as we racked our brains for where to go and what to do, that it was up to me.
I counted my money and showed it to Dean and said, "Come to New York."
"Let's go to Denver first," he said.
"This time we must absolutely find my father, Sal!"
Your signature here...
We're taking the semi-pristine Chrysler to Kansas.
Along with yourselves, there's a nice young married couple.
We share the gas expenses equally among the five of us.
Are we all copacetic on that score gentlemen?
Yeah.
Ola
I'm very glad you have accepted my invitation to a few drinks after that perilous journey.
Ah, no problem, amigo.
Thank you.
Hmm, whiskey
I like young men like you.
You probably don't believe it, but, uh.
the truth is, I really don't like girls.
I'm just gonna go to the bathroom.
Excuse me.
To tell you the straight deal, I sometimes had to survive the streets of Denver by working far into the night.
Yes, I can appreciate, uh...
"Never leave a customer unsatisfied."
I had that tattooed on my ass.
Perhaps there will be some money involved...
Oh, yeah?
Ah.
Jesus!
Denver, Colorado
You see?
You give them what they secretly want and they just panic.
And here you go.
Club, extra mayo.
Enjoy.
Look, I did it for us, man.
I got twenty bucks off the old fag.
My old man, a little guy, Moriarty.
Known in these parts as "the Barber".
"Moriarty"?
No.
Never heard of him.
Sorry, son.
I ain't seen your old man in.
I don't know how many years.
New York, 1950
How long have we known each other?
5 years?
5 pretty good years.
Who are we now?
Who are we, yes?
Who are we now?
ah, a simple question.
Are you gonna tell us, Carlo?
I know I'm 23.
I know that I rely on my friends and my family for money...
Ah, ah.
Join that club, please!
I know I will.
I know there's no gold at the end of the rainbow.
There's just shit and piss.
But to know that, that makes me free.
You come in contact with social controls.
With custom, with moral code, and with law.
The town or city in which you live has laws which control you.
There are state laws, and the federal government in your name...
Mexico, huh?
Damn Sal, that's big
You know, I've been thinking.
I've never been south.
Damn, Sal, I wish you weren't going.
It'll be my first timein ol' New York without my good boy.
Shit, Sal.
We haven't talked straight in a long time.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah.
You see, man.
The older you get, those troubles just keep piling on.
Look at this.
That's Joanie.
Look at that smile, too.
Ain't she gonna break some hearts
Yeah.
She's beautiful.
Did I tell you Marylou's pregnant?
Well if it speaks French-Canadian, it's a complete coincidence
Shit
I'll leave you to it.
Thanks for the visit.
I'll write you.
I know you will.
Take care buddy.
Go get 'em!
Hey, Sal!
Now you know I habla la espanol, don't you?
La Estrella, Mexico
Gracias
Sir, sir!
Do you like it?
60 pesos.
No, gracias.
Hey kid!
You got any marijuana?
Marijuana?
Si.
Si si si.
Those are my brothers, my sister and my grandmother too.
Well, shit.
Your 'ma could learn a few lessons from this kid's grandma.
A man of word!
Victor.
This is the biggest bomber of tea I have ever smoked
What's his name?
Thomas.
Thomas?...
"El Paraiso"!
Hola
Hola, welcome to paradise!
Do you like girls?
Mucho, mucho love Mexico City is the holy place for more!
You're the best.
Gracias.
Thank you.
Look at this traffic, Sal!
Everybody just goes!
Dig those faces.
I want to be one of them!
Now we gotta eat this.
.How much?
We've got so much, we're rich!
They look just like us.
See, they're brothers!
My brother, I can smell the marijuana!
Yes!
Voyager, c'est bien utile, ga fait traveler I'imagination.
Tout le reste n'est que deceptions et fatigues.
Prends soin de ta mere.
To the good, old, dead, demented men we love.
Voila sa force.
Il va de la vie a la mort.
To the West.
"You got no calluses, Sal."
C'est un moment...
Notre voyage a nous est entierement imaginaire.
"C'est oublie!
I've never been able to kill myself.
I am at your immediate disposal.
Immediate disposal.
Because you've crushed all the poetry you had in you.
Take a close look at yourself and the degree of rottenness you've come to.
You can't deny the blood guilt.
You 're white.
White!
White
Poor Sal got sick.
Dysentery, man.
Now listen if you can hear in your sickness, my boy.
I got my divorce with Camille down here, and I gotta get back if the car can hold up.
Not that again.
All that again, good buddy.
I've got to get back to my life.
Wish I didn't have to go.
Yes, yes, yes.
I gotta go now, ol' fever Sal.
Goodbye.
Ozone Park, 1951
Humm.
Pour toi.
Merci.
Denver Doldrums- For S.P. and D.M.
the secret heroes of these poems - Poems by Carlo Marx
I would rather go mad, gone down the track to Mexico, heroin dripping in my veins,
eyes and ears full of marijuana, eating the god Peyote on the floor of a mudhut on the border...
rather jar my body down the road, crying by a diner in the Western sun;
rather crawl on my naked belly over tincans in Cincinnati; rather drag a rotten railroad tie to a Golgotha in the Rockies;
rather crowned with thorns in Galveston; nailed hand and foot in Los Angeles;
raised up to die in Denver; pierced in the side in Chicago;
perished and tombed in New Orleans; and resurrected somewhere on Garret Mountain.
December, 1951
Hey.
Sal?
Is that you, man?
Hang on a minute.
What are you doing in New York, man?
Dear Sal...
I came on the railroad pass.
Old hard bench coaches.
Crossing railroads.
Long, long awful trip, five days and nights, just to see you, Sal.
Are you alright?
How's Camille?
How are the babies?
"Dear Dean, Its the end of the first half of the century.
Welcome with love and kisses to spend the other half with us.
We all wait for you.
Camille, Amy and little Joanie."
That's great
Yeah.
We still haven't talked of Mexico, and us leaving, and the fever of last year.
But we don't...
Hey Sal, we gotta go, man!
We don't have to talk about that right now.
No.
Hey.
Hey Sal, for Christ's sake.
Duke Ellington ain't gonna wait
Yeah, just give me a minute, Remi!
They're all waiting.
Do you think.
you can give me a ride to East 14th?
I want to spend as much time with my boy as possible, you know.
Man, I wish we didn't have tickets to this concert.
Yeah.
Bye, Dean.
Hey, Sal!
I love you as ever.
I first met Dean not long after my father died...
Oh I got a pretty little girl...
Dean, I'll be goddamned!
You're early...
Yeah, well...
around my finger...
I was in reform school all the time.
I was like a young punk asserting myself...
and she stands on her head and she does the splits...
"I need your cock!
"The only people that interest me are the mad ones...
Mad to live, mad to talk...
...the West coast and come crashing down to earth...
And the sound of the wild...
Bless me, Father, for I will sin
Man, I just love women!
I just want a house...
Ah, shit, Dean!
a baby.
Sal.
I've come to ask you to teach me how to write.
And it's hard, ain't it hard, to love what you kill
That Hudson goes!
Hey, Sal!
I love you as ever.
So in America, when the sun goes down and I sit on the old, broken-down river pier, watching the long long skies over New Jersey,
and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West coast,
and all of that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it,
and in Iowa I know by now that the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie,
which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the Earth,
darkens all rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in,
and nobody, nobody knows what is going to happen to anybody,
besides the forlorn rags of growing old,
I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of old Dean Moriarty, the father we never found,
I think of Dean Moriarty, I think of Dean Moriarty.
Can you hear me now?
But anyway...
Tonight also, I wrote a song, called "On the Road".
I'm just rather reading what I wrote all night.
There are better things coming than what I wrote all night.
Straight from the mind to the voice, with no hand intervening.
I left New York, 1949 to go across the country without a dad-blame dime.
Montana in the cold, cold fall Found my father in the gambling hall Father, Father where have you been?
You've been in the world since I was a teen.
Dear son, he said, don't worry about me I'm about to die of pleurisy
Cross the Mississippi, cross the Tennessee Cross the Niagara,
home I'll never be.
Home in ol' Medora, home in ol' Truckee Apalachicola, home I'll never be.
For better or worse, through thick and thin like being married to the little woman.
God loved me just like I loved him I want you do the same just for him.
The worms eat away but don't worry, watch the wind.
The worms eat away but don't worry watch the wind.
So I left Montana on an ol' freight train
The night my father died in the cold, cold rain.
Rode up to Opelousas, rode to Wounded Knee, Rode to Ogallala, home I'll never be.
Home I'll never be.