Part One Chapter 10

That night I found Carlo and to my amazement¹ he told me he'd been in Central City with Dean. "What did you do?"
"Oh, we ran around the bars and then Dean stole a car and we drove back down the mountain curves ninety miles an hour." "I didn't see you."
"We didn't know you were there."
"Well, man, I'm going to San Francisco." "Dean has Rita lined up for you tonight."
"Well, then, I'll put it off." I had no money. I sent my aunt an
airmail letter asking her for fifty dollars and said it would be the last money I'd ask; after that she would be getting money back from me, as soon as I got that ship.
Then I went to meet Rita Bettencourt and took her back to the apartment. I got her in my bedroom after a long talk in the dark of the front room. She was a nice little girl, simple and true, and tremendous- ly frightened of sex. I told her it was beautiful. I wanted to prove this to her. She let me prove it, but I was too impatient and proved nothing. She sighed in the dark. "What do you want out of life?" I asked, and I used to ask that all the time of girls.
"I don't know," she said. "Just wait on tables and try to get along." She yawned. I put my hand over her mouth and told her not to yawn. I tried to tell her how excited I was about life and the things we could do  together; saying that, and planning to leave Denver in two days. She turned  away wearily. We lay on our backs, looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought² when He made life so sad. We made vague plans to meet in Frisco.
My moments in Denver were coming to an end, I could feel it when I walked her home, on the way back I stretched out on the grass of an old church with a bunch of hobos, and their talk made me want to get back on that road. Every now and then one would get up and hit a passer-by for a dime³. They talked of harvests moving north. It was warm and soft. I  wanted  to go and get Rita again and tell her a lot more things, and really make love to her this time, and calm her fears about men. Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they  submit to sex immediately without proper  preliminary  talk.  Not  courting  talk--real  straight  talk  about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious. I heard the Denver and Rio Grande locomotive howling off to the mountains. I wanted to pursue my star further.
Major and I sat sadly talking in the midnight hours. "Have you ever   read  iGreen  Hills  of  Africai?  It's  Hemingway's  best."  We wished each other luck. We would meet in Frisco. I saw Rawlins under a dark tree in the  street. "Good-by, Ray. When do we meet again?" I went to look for Carlo and Dean--nowhere to be found. Tim Gray shot his hand up in the air and said, "So you're leaving, Yo." We called each other Yo. "Yep," I said. The next few days I wandered around Denver.
It seemed to me every bum⁴ on Larimer Street maybe was Dean Moriarty's father; Old Dean Moriarty they called him, the Tinsmith. I went in the Windsor Hotel, where father and son had lived and where one night  Dean was frightfully waked up by the legless man on the rollerboard  who  shared  the  room  with  them;  he  came  thundering across the floor on his terrible wheels to touch the boy. I saw the little midget newspaper-selling woman with the short legs, on the corner of Curtis and 15th. I walked around the sad honkytonks of Curtis Street; young kids in jeans and red shirts;  peanut shells,  movie marquees, shooting  parlors⁵.  Beyond  the  glittering   street  was  darkness,  and beyond the darkness the West. I had to go.
At dawn I found Carlo. I read some of his enormous journal, slept there, and in the morning, drizzly⁶ and gray, tall, six-foot Ed Dun- kel came in  with Roy Johnson, a handsome kid, and Tom Snark, the clubfooted  poolshark.  They  sat  around  and  listened  with  abashed⁷ smiles as Carlo Marx read them his apocalyptic⁸, mad poetry. I slumped⁹ in my chair, finished.  "Oh ye Denver birds!" cried Carlo. We all filed out and went up a typical cobbled Denver alley¹⁰ between incinerators smoking slowly. "I used to roll my hoop¹¹ up this alley," Chad King had told me. I wanted to see him do it; I  wanted to see Denver ten years ago when they were all children, and in  the sunny cherry blossom morning of springtime in the Rockies rolling their hoops¹² up the joyous¹³ alleys¹⁴ full of promise--the whole gang. And Dean, ragged¹⁵ and dirty, prowling by himself in his preoccupied¹⁶ frenzy¹⁷.
Roy Johnson and I walked in the drizzle¹⁸; I went to Eddie's girl's house to get back my wool plaid shirt, the shirt of Shelton, Nebraska. It was there,  all  tied up, the whole enormous sadness of a shirt. Roy Johnson said he'd meet me in Frisco. Everybody was going to Frisco. I went and found my  money had arrived. The sun came out, and Tim Gray rode a trolley¹⁹ with  me  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. Tim Gray waved good-by. 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 Dean said he and Car- lo might join me on the Coast; I pondered this, and realized I hadn't talked to Dean for more than five minutes in the whole time.

1 amazement   

n.惊奇，惊讶

参考例句：

• All those around him looked at him with amazement.周围的人都对他投射出惊异的眼光。
• He looked at me in blank amazement.他带着迷茫惊诧的神情望着我。

2 wrought   

v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的

参考例句：

• Events in Paris wrought a change in British opinion towards France and Germany.巴黎发生的事件改变了英国对法国和德国的看法。
• It's a walking stick with a gold head wrought in the form of a flower.那是一个金质花形包头的拐杖。

3 dime   

n.（指美国、加拿大的钱币）一角

参考例句：

• A dime is a tenth of a dollar.一角银币是十分之一美元。
• The liberty torch is on the back of the dime.自由火炬在一角硬币的反面。

4 bum   

n.臀部；流浪汉，乞丐；vt.乞求，乞讨

参考例句：

• A man pinched her bum on the train so she hit him.在火车上有人捏她屁股，她打了那人。
• The penniless man had to bum a ride home.那个身无分文的人只好乞求搭车回家。

5 parlors   

客厅( parlor的名词复数 )； 起居室； （旅馆中的）休息室； （通常用来构成合成词）店

参考例句：

• It had been a firm specializing in funeral parlors and parking lots. 它曾经是一个专门经营殡仪馆和停车场的公司。
• I walked, my eyes focused into the endless succession of barbershops, beauty parlors, confectioneries. 我走着，眼睛注视着那看不到头的、鳞次栉比的理发店、美容院、糖果店。

6 drizzly   

a.毛毛雨的(a drizzly day)

参考例句：

• This section of the country is drizzly in the winter. 该国的这一地区在冬天经常细雨蒙蒙。
• That region is drizzly in winter. 那个地区冬天常下小雨。

7 abashed   

adj.窘迫的，尴尬的v.使羞愧，使局促，使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He glanced at Juliet accusingly and she looked suitably abashed. 他怪罪的一瞥，朱丽叶自然显得很窘。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The girl was abashed by the laughter of her classmates. 那小姑娘因同学的哄笑而局促不安。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 apocalyptic   

adj.预示灾祸的，启示的

参考例句：

• The air is chill and stagnant,the language apocalyptic.空气寒冷而污浊，语言则是《启示录》式的。
• Parts of the ocean there look just absolutely apocalyptic.海洋的很多区域看上去完全像是世界末日。

9 slumped   

大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下]

参考例句：

• Sales have slumped this year. 今年销售量锐减。
• The driver was slumped exhausted over the wheel. 司机伏在方向盘上，疲惫得睡着了。

10 alley   

n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路

参考例句：

• We live in the same alley.我们住在同一条小巷里。
• The blind alley ended in a brick wall.这条死胡同的尽头是砖墙。

11 hoop   

n.（篮球）篮圈，篮

参考例句：

• The child was rolling a hoop.那个孩子在滚铁环。
• The wooden tub is fitted with the iron hoop.木盆都用铁箍箍紧。

12 hoops   

n.箍( hoop的名词复数 )；（篮球）篮圈；（旧时儿童玩的）大环子；（两端埋在地里的）小铁弓

参考例句：

• a barrel bound with iron hoops 用铁箍箍紧的桶
• Hoops in Paris were wider this season and skirts were shorter. 在巴黎，这个季节的裙圈比较宽大，裙裾却短一些。 来自飘（部分）

13 joyous   

adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的

参考例句：

• The lively dance heightened the joyous atmosphere of the scene.轻快的舞蹈给这场戏渲染了欢乐气氛。
• They conveyed the joyous news to us soon.他们把这一佳音很快地传递给我们。

14 alleys   

胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径

参考例句：

• I followed him through a maze of narrow alleys. 我紧随他穿过一条条迂迴曲折的窄巷。
• The children lead me through the maze of alleys to the edge of the city. 孩子们领我穿过迷宫一般的街巷，来到城边。

15 ragged   

adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的

参考例句：

• A ragged shout went up from the small crowd.这一小群人发出了刺耳的喊叫。
• Ragged clothing infers poverty.破衣烂衫意味着贫穷。

16 preoccupied   

adj.全神贯注的，入神的；被抢先占有的；心事重重的v.占据（某人）思想，使对…全神贯注，使专心于( preoccupy的过去式)

参考例句：

• He was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice anything wrong. 他只顾想着心事，没注意到有什么不对。
• The question of going to the Mount Tai preoccupied his mind. 去游泰山的问题盘踞在他心头。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 frenzy   

n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动

参考例句：

• He was able to work the young students up into a frenzy.他能激起青年学生的狂热。
• They were singing in a frenzy of joy.他们欣喜若狂地高声歌唱。

18 drizzle   

v.下毛毛雨；n.毛毛雨，蒙蒙细雨

参考例句：

• The shower tailed off into a drizzle.阵雨越来越小，最后变成了毛毛雨。
• Yesterday the radio forecast drizzle,and today it is indeed raining.昨天预报有小雨，今天果然下起来了。

19 trolley   

n.手推车，台车；无轨电车；有轨电车

参考例句：

• The waiter had brought the sweet trolley.侍者已经推来了甜食推车。
• In a library,books are moved on a trolley.在图书馆，书籍是放在台车上搬动的。