- Just go.

On the Road

Jack met Allen in 1944. I met Allen fifty years later.

3y ago
1.7K
Geary Street.

Geary Street.

I was a sweaty mess, having run around an oblong track in a white T-shirt. He was old and short with a beard mostly grey. It looked as though he was having difficulty with the door and I opened it for him, realising immediately that it was him, in the California spring.

He was a bent man with tan polyester trousers. But the eyes; the depth and sparkle that swirled just lateral to the reactive pupil. I pointed him to the auditorium and waited in my aromatic filth, contemplating if I should follow. I did.

City Lights, circa 1955

City Lights, circa 1955

For two hours I sat on the edge of my chair, as Allen recollected Jack and Neal. I was mesmerized by his readings from 'Howl' and his proclamation of love and hope; his 67 year old Jewish legs, thin and wearing dark blue socks, tapping a beat of consciousness on a small wooden oratory box.

For a brief instant I had been with Jack, through the eyes of Allen; I had seen the flop-houses, I had heard the screams of night and the lyrical jazz that filled the foggy night with an atonal beat, constantly moving, constantly trying to find the key.

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