It was over a year before I saw Dean again. I stayed home all that time, finished my book and began going to school on the GI Bill of Rights. At Christmas 1948 my aunt and I went down to visit my brother in Virgin- ia, laden1 with presents. I had been writing to Dean and he said he was coming East again; and I told him if so he would find me in Testament2, Virginia, between Christmas and New Year's. One day when all our Southern relatives were sitting around the parlor3 in Testament, gaunt men and women with the old Southern soil in their eyes, talking in low, whining voices about the weather, the crops, and the general weary recapitulation of who had a baby, who got a new house, and so on, a mud-spattered '49 Hudson drew up in front of the house on the dirt road. I had no idea who it was. A weary young fellow, muscular and ragged5 in a T-shirt, unshaven, red-eyed, came to the porch and rang the bell. I opened the door and suddenly realized it was Dean. He had come all the way from San Francisco to my brother Rocco's door in Virginia, and in an amazingly short time, because I had just written my last letter, telling where I was. In the car I could see two figures sleep- ing. "I'll be goddamned! Dean! Who's in the car?"
"Hello, hello, man, it's Marylou. And Ed Dunkel. We gotta have place to wash up immediately, we're dog-tired."
"But how did you get here so fast?" "Ah, man, that Hudson goes!" "Where did you get it?"
"I bought it with my savings6. I've been working on the railroad,
making four hundred dollars a month."
There was utter confusion in the following hour. My Southern relatives had no idea what was going on, or who or what Dean, Mary- lou, and Ed Dunkel were; they dumbly stared. My aunt and my broth- er Rocky went in the kitchen to consult. There were, in all, eleven people in the little Southern house. Not only that, but my brother had just decided7 to move from that house, and half his furniture was gone; he and his wife and baby were moving closer tothe town of Testament. They had bought a new parlor set and their old one was going to my aunt's house in Paterson, though we hadn't yet decided how. When Dean heard this he at once offered his services with the Hudson. He and I would carry the furniture to Paterson in two fast trips and bring my aunt back at the end of the second trip. This was going to save us a lot of money and trouble. It was agreed upon. My sister-in-law made a spread, and the three battered8 travelers sat down to eat. Marylou had not slept since Denver. I thought she looked older and more beautiful now.
I learned that Dean had lived happily with Camille in San Fran- cisco ever since that fall of 1947; he got a job on the railroad and made a lot of money. He became the father of a cute little girl, Amy Moriarty. Then suddenly he blew his top while walking down the street one day. He saw a '49 Hudson for sale and rushed to the bank for his entire roll. He bought the car on the spot. Ed Dunkel was with him. Now they were broke. Dean calmed Camille's fears and told her he'd be back in a month. "I'm going to New York and bring Sal back." She wasn't too pleased at this prospect9.
"But what is the purpose of all this? Why are you doing this to me?"
"It's nothing, it's nothing, darling--ah--hem--Sal has pleaded and begged with me to come and get him, it is absolutely necessary for me to--but we won't go into all these explanations--and I'll tell you why ... No, listen, I'll tell you why." And he told her why, and of course it made no sense.
Big tall Ed Dunkel also worked on the railroad. He and Dean
had just been laid off during a seniority lapse10 because of a drastic re- duction of crews. Ed had met a girl called Galatea who was living in San Francisco on her savings. These two mindless cads decided to bring the girl along to the East and have her foot the bill. Ed cajoled and pleaded; she wouldn't go unless he married her. In a whirlwind few days Ed Dunkel married Galatea, with Dean rushing around to get the necessary papers, and a few days before Christmas they rolled out of San Francisco at seventy miles per, headed for LA and the snowless southern road. In LA they picked up a sailor in a travel bureau and took him along for fifteen dollars' worth of gas. He was bound for In- diana. They also picked up a woman with her idiot daughter, for four dollars' gas fare to Arizona. Dean sat the idiot girl with him up front and dug her, as he said, "All the iwayi, man! such a gone sweet little soul. Oh, we talked, we talked of fires and the desert turning to a para- dise and her parrot that swore in Spanish." Dropping off these passen- gers, they proceeded to Tucson. All along the way Galatea Dunkel, Ed's new wife, kept complaining that she was tired and wanted to sleep in a motel. If this kept up they'd spend all her money long before Virginia. Two nights she forced a stop and blew tens on motels. By the time they got to Tucson she was broke. Dean and Ed gave her the slip in a hotel lobby and resumed the voyage alone, with the sailor, and without a qualm.
Ed Dunkel was a tall, calm, unthinking fellow who was com- pletely ready to do anything Dean asked him; and at this time Dean was too busy for scruples12. He was roaring through Las Cruces, New Mexico, when he suddenly had an explosive yen13 to see his sweet first wife Marylou again. She was up in Denver. He swung the car north, against the feeble protests of the sailor, and zoomed14 into Denver in the evening. He ran and found Marylou in a hotel. They had ten hours of wild lovemaking. Everything was decided again: they were going to stick. Marylou was the only girl Dean ever really loved. He was sick with regret when he saw her face again, and, as of yore, he pleaded and begged at her knees for the joy of her being. She understood Dean; she stroked his hair; she knew he was mad. To soothe16 the sailor, Dean fixed17 him up with a girl in a hotel room over the bar where the old poolhall gang always drank. But the sailor refused the girl and in fact walked off in the night and they never saw him again; he evidently took a bus to Indiana.Dean, Marylou, and Ed Dunkel roared east along Colfax and out to the Kansas plains. Great snowstorms overtook them. In Mis- souri, at night, Dean had to drive with his scarf-wrapped head stuck out the window, with snowglasses that made him look like a monk18 peering into the manuscripts of the snow, because the windshield was covered with an inch of ice. He drove by the birth county of his fore- bears without a thought. In the morning the car skidded19 on an icy hill and flapped into a ditch. A farmer offered to help them out. They got hung-up when they picked up a hitchhiker who promised them a dol- lar if they'd let him ride to Memphis. In Memphis he went into his house, puttered around looking for the dollar, got drunk, and said he couldn't find it. They resumed across Tennessee; the bearings were beat from the accident. Dean had been driving ninety; now he had to stick to a steady seventy or the whole motor would go whirring down the mountainside. They crossed the Great Smoky Mountains in midwinter. When they arrived at my brother's door they had not eaten for thirty hours--except for candy and cheese crackers20.
They ate voraciously21 as Dean, sandwich in hand, stood bowed and jumping before the big phonograph, listening to a wild bop record I had just bought called "The Hunt," with Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray blowing their tops before a screaming audience that gave the record fantastic frenzied volume. The Southern folk looked at one another and shook their heads in awe22. "What kind of friends does Sal have, anyway?" they said to my brother. He was stumped23 for an an- swer. Southerners don't like madness the least bit, not Dean's kind. He paid absolutely no attention to them. The madness of Dean had bloomed into a weird24 flower. I didn't realize this till he and I and Ma- rylou and Dunkel left the house for a brief spin-the-Hudson, when for the first time we were alone and could talk about anything we wanted. Dean grabbed the wheel, shifted to second, mused25 a minute, rolling, suddenly seemed to decide something and shot the car full-jet down the road in a fury of decision.
"All right now, children," he said, rubbing his nose and bending down to feel the emergency and pulling cigarettes out of the compart- ment, and swaying back and forth26 as he did these things and drove. "The time has come for us to decide what we're going to do for the next week. Crucial, crucial. Ahem!" He dodged27 a mule28 wagon29; in it sat an old Negro plodding along. "Yes!" yelled Dean. "Yes! Dig him! Now consider his soul--stop awhile and consider." And he slowed down the car for all of us to turn and look at the old jazzbo moaning along. "Oh yes, dig him sweet; now there's thoughts in that mind that I would give my last arm to know; to climb in there and find out just what he's poor- ass11 pondering about this year's turnip30 greens and ham. Sal, you don't know it but I once lived with a farmer in Arkansas for a whole year, when I was eleven. I had awful chores, I had to skin a dead horse once. Haven't been to Arkansas since Christmas nineteen-forty-three, five years ago, when Ben Gavin and I were chased by a man with a gun who owned the car we were trying to steal; I say all this to show you that of the South I can speak. I have known--I mean, man, I dig the South, I know it in and out--I've dug your letters to me about it. Oh yes, oh yes," he said, trailing off and stopping altogether, and suddenly jumping the car back to seventy and hunching31 over thewheel. He stared doggedly32 ahead. Marylou was smiling serenely33. This was the new and complete Dean, grown to maturity34. I said to myself, My God,, he's changed. Fury spat4 out of his eyes when he told of things he hated; great glows of joy replaced this when he suddenly got happy; every muscle twitched35 to live and go. "Oh, man, the things I could tell you," he said, poking36 me, "Oh, man, we must absolutely find the time--What has happened to Carlo? We all get to see Carlo, darlings, first thing tomorrow. Now, Marylou, we're getting some bread and meat to make a lunch for New York. How much money do you have, Sal? We'll put everything in the back seat, Mrs. P's furniture, and all of us will sit up front cuddly37 and close and tell stories as we zoom15 to New York. Mary- lou, honeythighs, you sit next to me, Sal next, then Ed at the window, big Ed to cut off drafts, whereby he comes into using the robe this time. And then we'll all go off to sweet life, 'cause now is the time and we all know time!" He rubbed his jaw38 furiously, he swung the car and passed three trucks, he roared into downtown Testament, looking in every direction and seeing everything in an arc of 180 degrees around his eyeballs without moving his head. Bang, he found a parking space in no time, and we were parked. He leaped out of the car. Furiously he hustled40 into the railroad station; we followed sheepishly. He bought cigarettes. He had become absolutely mad in his movements; he seemed to be doing everything at the same time. It was. a shaking of the head, up and down, sideways; jerky, vigorous hands; quick walk- ing, sitting, crossing the legs, uncrossing, getting up, rubbing the hands, rubbing his fly, hitching41 his pants, looking up and saying "Am," and sudden slitting42 of the eyes to see everywhere; and all the time he was grabbing me by the ribs43 and talking, talking.
It was very cold in Testament; they'd had an unseasonable snow. He stood in the long bleak44 main street that runs along-the rail- road, clad in nothing but a T-shirt and low-hanging pants with the belt unbuckled, as though he was about to take them off. He came sticking his head in to talk to Marylou; he backed away, fluttering his hands before her. "Oh yes, I know! I know you, I know you, darling!" His laugh was. maniacal45; it started low and ended high, exactly like the laugh of a radio maniac46, only faster and more like a titter. Then he kept reverting47 to businesslike tones. There was no purpose in our coming downtown, but he found purposes. He made us all hustle39, Marylou for the lunch groceries, me for a paper to dig the weather report, Ed for cigars. Dean loved to smoke cigars. He smoked one over the paper and talked. "Ah, our holy American slopjaws in Washington are planning further inconveniences--ah-hem!--aw--hup! hup!" And he leaped off and rushed to see a colored girl that just then passed outside the sta- tion. "Dig her," he said, standing48 with limp finger pointed49, fingering himself with a goofy smile, "that little gone black lovely. Ah! Hmm!" We got in the car and flew back to my brother's house.
I had been spending a quiet Christmas in the country, as I rea- lized when we got back into the house and I saw the Christmas tree, the presents, and smelled the roasting turkey and listened to the talk of the relatives, but now the bug50 was on me again, and the bug's name was Dean Moriarty and I was off on another spurt51 around the road.
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laden
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| adj.装满了的；充满了的；负了重担的；苦恼的 | |
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testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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spat
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| n.口角，掌击；v.发出呼噜呼噜声 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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ass
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| n.驴；傻瓜，蠢笨的人 | |
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12
scruples
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| n.良心上的不安( scruple的名词复数 )；顾虑，顾忌v.感到于心不安，有顾忌( scruple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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yen
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| n. 日元；热望 | |
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zoomed
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| v.（飞机、汽车等）急速移动( zoom的过去式 )；（价格、费用等）急升，猛涨 | |
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zoom
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| n.急速上升；v.突然扩大，急速上升 | |
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soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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skidded
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| v.（通常指车辆） 侧滑( skid的过去式和过去分词 )；打滑；滑行；（住在）贫民区 | |
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crackers
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| adj.精神错乱的，癫狂的n.爆竹( cracker的名词复数 )；薄脆饼干；（认为）十分愉快的事；迷人的姑娘 | |
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voraciously
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| adv.贪婪地 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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stumped
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| 僵直地行走，跺步行走( stump的过去式和过去分词 )； 把（某人）难住； 使为难； （选举前）在某一地区作政治性巡回演说 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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dodged
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| v.闪躲( dodge的过去式和过去分词 )；回避 | |
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mule
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| n.骡子，杂种，执拗的人 | |
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wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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turnip
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| n.萝卜，芜菁 | |
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31
hunching
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| 隆起（hunch的现在分词形式） | |
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32
doggedly
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| adv.顽强地，固执地 | |
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serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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34
maturity
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| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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35
twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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36
poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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37
cuddly
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| adj.抱着很舒服的，可爱的 | |
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38
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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39
hustle
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| v.推搡；竭力兜售或获取；催促；n.奔忙(碌) | |
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40
hustled
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| 催促（hustle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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41
hitching
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| 搭乘； （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的现在分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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42
slitting
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| n.纵裂（缝）v.切开，撕开( slit的现在分词 )；在…上开狭长口子 | |
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43
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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44
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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45
maniacal
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| adj.发疯的 | |
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46
maniac
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| n.精神癫狂的人；疯子 | |
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47
reverting
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| 恢复( revert的现在分词 )； 重提； 回到…上； 归还 | |
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48
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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49
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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50
bug
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| n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器 | |
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51
spurt
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| v.喷出；突然进发；突然兴隆 | |
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