An Open Letter to Kerouac

Dear Ti Jean,

I finally made it. I write these words in the town of your birth, the town where you eternally rest. I'd like to say I hitched here, or rode a freight, or even "did the dog" (Greyhound--I think they were around when you were) but I came in under my own power, in that car I rented so I can tool around the green roads of Vermont. Even my lodging feels a copout--I struggled with staying in some fleabag digs closer to your spirit, but settled on a large comfortable place vivisected from the carcass of one of those old riverfront mills you successfully escaped lifetime employment in. Not only did this put me in the center of Lowell proper, but I figured you'd appreciate the Buddhist reincarnation/Catholic resurrection motif.

You'd hardly recognize Lowell. Your birthplace duplex on Lupine is for rent. The neighborhood seems neat, comfortable, no doubt a far cry from when you knew it in the Depression. In fact, all of Centralville seems a nice place to live. The native French speakers have either assimilated or moved on. Spanish is lingua franca now. In fact, St. Louis church seems a misnomer--San Luis would be a better fit. The house where you lost Gerard has a nice, cheerful flag out front. A boy was playing nearby. He looked about 9.

Pawtucket today would make you lost. They've changed most of the street names. The tar sidewalks down by Moody Street bridge has been replaced, and the Textile Lunch has gone through many hands. The 1971 photos in the Gifford book and the ones 20 years later in Dorfner show different names, and it is different yet again today, thought the boards in the window tell me that no food has been made there in quite some time. And the balconies that frightened you so much are gone, as are the doors leading to them. At the other end of Moody St bridge, the place that scarred/scared you so when you saw the watermelon man drop dead, now houses a fortune teller. The bridge itself moans when you drive over it. Spooky stuff even for an adult. The nearby Stations of the Cross, and the Grotto haven't changed at all. They look just as you described them in Dr Sax. And the Merrimack River beyond, has the same power, the same beauty. I'm tempted to say like a woman, but then again, you always liked your women malleable, didn't you? Well, except for Memare.

I wanna drink a beer to you but the bar at the hotel is noisy. They're showing a Sox game on the TV, and the Yankees are winning a lot these days. There are few things louder than a group of unhappy men. So I take a beer to my room, and look out the window. The warehouses are slowly darkening red, and the old neon sign came on over the Sun newspaper building. It looks like it was probably there when you were writing for them. And the horizon is all aglow now, revealling only the old things, the steeples and smokestacks that once gave this town life...

It's morning now Ti Jean. I walk the red downtown streets. it's a gorgeous day, the bricks growing plump and warm in the sun. I doubt you'd see much here that you know, the whole place is a maze of gentrification. Upscale shops are housed on the ground level of all the old factories lining the canals. Your fellaheen seem to have been priced out. It's nice though, clean, spacious. One narrow path itself is a work of art--sculptures grow from the grass, hang from the trees. Hand-cranked scroll poems along the Eastern Canal. Your own words hang from a banner at your old high school. The clock where you wrote about waiting for Maggie Cassidy stills hangs out front, but the hands are frozen at a time that's no longer there. I walk the bricks, walk the bricks. I'm desperate for pancakes, but can't find any in the modern cafes. I'm about to give up but then I spy Paradise Diner near the tracks. A stack and refillable coffee for 4 bucks! I cross the street to the Commemorative they've built for you, to read your words off the marble pillars. I sit in the middle of them, listening to a landscape crew BS about girls and last night's game. Your words on black marble parallel the black ink tracing my own thoughts across Japanese washi.

I walk to the Boont Hills Museum. A few days ago, looking for info about Lowell, I saw that they're going to put your "On the Road" scroll on display. At the museum, I find that the exhibit won't be open until tonite. The people I see leaving the building are media. So I exaggerate my KJ credentials and somehow bluff myself into the press conference. The mayor of Lowell is there. I can't remember the name, probably a family you know, but it may as well be Quimby, for the accent. A couple other dignitaries give a few words in your honor. I wonder how square you'd find all this. Or perhaps you'd just smile sagelike and keep silent. But c'mon Jack, the local university has given you a PhD this month, fer crissake. The system you and Allen tried to shake awake has taken you as one of theirs. But they do put on a good show. I watch as the caretaker unrolls the scroll, then weighs it down with thin strips of plastic. He explains that the first time they closed the case, the static caused it to levitate. You always were surrounded by ghosts, Jack. And many of those ghosts were on display there in the photos with you. I'm sure you would have been amused, especially the part about how you wrote the book in 3 weeks fueled by "caffeine." Caffeine? Bennies, wasn't it? On the way out I chat with the mayor briefly, then walk outside to follow the path along the Merrimack, laughing all the way. Life can be so wonderful and hilarious.

South of town I stop at your grave. I've brought nothing--no port, no flowers--but I do have a song. I play my flute, sitting awhile among the notes and bits of broken glass, on earth made bare of grass by the many who have come to pay tribute to you--who honored life.

So long, Jack...




On the turntable: Dave Brubeck Quartet, "Time Further Out"