The last piece on Otis came out of some dreams inspired by my friend David who suggested I should write my “On the Road”. Why it brought back Monterey days I’ve no idea…but then again.
Certainly, I have had a most wondrous life, filled with adventure, some great accomplishment and if I say so myself (as the author would of himself) a love life rivaling the quivering Tropic’s. And despite once sharing a smile and a sunset with Henry, I chose the travelin’ to be a solitary journey.
The Giants are what make Kerouac compelling. Old Jack is a minor character, a chronicler, a journalist, at best an Ishmael in a grand pod of white whales, which he not only knows, but loves intimately. Some would say Jack made many of them whales, but that isn’t true. Those folks breached so very high above the wine red sea.
I, as well, have met many colossal souls on the roads I have walked, in some cases they were like milestones that were noted and passed on by, but seldom did we walk together. And those great hearts like White, Kolp, Hudson-Reade, Rausch, Coupe and David, too, who did bear, the beast. with me: how could my words in the first person do them justice? And dare I ever let them know I hold them above me? It is not that I lack humbleness, I just don’t like it.
I suspect I will write my “book”. There have been several beginnings, actually over one hundred. Perhaps I have stumbled on the solution. A book of beginnings! No end, no middle, just days of conception and conjunction without culmination. That would be like the strange and glorious road I’ve known.
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