The ghostly figure thickened and drew substance from the player’s cone. At some point it was finished. Jack Kerouac was there standing over me with a puzzled frown.
Somehow Karla’s coven had caught the Kerouac of 1958, a tough, greasy-faced mind-assassin still years away from his eventual bloat and blood-stomach death.
“I was afraid he’d look like a corpse,” I murmured to Karla.
“Well, I feel like a corpse—say a dead horse—what happened?” said Kerouac. He walked over to the window and looked out. “Whooeee, this ain’t even Cleveland or the golden tongues of flame. Got any hoocha?” He turned and glared at me with eyes that were dark vortices. Everything about him was right except the eyes.
“Do you have any brandy?” I asked Karla.
“No, but I could begin undressing.”
Kerouac and I exchanged a glance of mutual understanding. “Look,” I suggested, “Jack and I will go out for a bottle and be right back.”
“Oh all right,” Karla sighed. “But you have to carry the player with you. And
hang onto it
!”
The soul-player had a carrying strap. As I slung it over my shoulder, Kerouac staggered a bit. “Easy, Jackson,” he cautioned.
“My name’s Alvin, actually,” I said.
“Al von Actually,” muttered Kerouac. “Let’s rip this joint.”
We clattered down the stairs, his feet as loud as mine. Jack seemed a little surprised at the street-scene. I think it was his first time in Germany. I wasn’t too well dressed, and with Jack’s rumpled hair and filthy plaid shirt, we made a really scurvy pair of Americans. The passers-by, handsome and nicely dressed, gave us wide berth.
“We can get some brandy down here,” I said, jerking my head. “At the candy store. Then let’s go sit by the river.”
“Twilight of the gods at River Lethe. In the groove, Al, in the gr-gr-oove.” He seemed fairly uninterested in talking to me and spoke only in such distracted snatches, spoke like a man playing pinball and talking to a friend over his shoulder. Off and on I had the feeling that if the soul-player were turned off, I’d be the one to disappear. But he was the one with black whirlpools instead of eyes. Kerouac was the ghost, not me.
But not quite ghost either; his grip on the bottle was solid, his drinking was real, and so was mine, of course, as we passed the liter back and forth, sitting on the grassy meadow that slopes down the Neckar River. It was March 12th, basically cold, but with a good strong sun. I was comfortable in my old leather jacket and Jack, Jack was right there with me.
“I like this brandy,” I said, feeling it.
“Bee-a-zooze. What do you want from me anyway, Al? Poke a stick in a corpse, get maggots come up on you. Taking a chance, Al, for whyever?”
“Well, I…you’re my favorite writer. I always wanted to be you. Hitch-hike stoned and buy whores in Mexico. I missed all that, I mean I did it, but differently. I guess I want the next kids to like me like I like you.”
“Lot of like, it’s all nothing. Pain and death, more death and pain. It took me twenty years to kill myself. You?”
“I’m just starting. I figure if I trade some of the drinking off for weed, I can stretch it out longer. If I don’t shoot myself. I can’t believe you’re really here. Jack Kerouac.”
He drained the rest of the bottle and pitched it out into the river. A cloud was in front of the sun now and the water was grey. It was, all at once, hard to think of any good reason for living. At least I had a son.
“Look in my eyes,” Jack was saying. “Look in there.”
I didn’t want to, but he leaned in front of me to stare. His face was hard and bitter. I realized I was playing way out of my league.
The eyes. Like I said before, they were spinning dark holes, empty sockets forever draining no place. I thought of Edgar Allen Poe’s story about some guys caught for days in a maelstrom, and thinking this, I began to see small figures flailing in the dark spirals, Jack’s remembered friends and loved ones maybe, or maybe other dead souls.
The whirlpools fused now to a single dark, huge cyclone, seemingly beneath me. I was scared to breathe, scared to fall, scared even that Kerouac himself might fall into his own eyes.
A dog ran up to us and the spell snapped. “More
trinken
,” said Jack. “Go get another bottle, Al. I’ll wait here.”
“Okay.”
“The player,” rasped Jack. “You have to leave the soul-player here, too.”
“Fine.” I set it down on the ground.
“Out on first,” said Kerouac. “The pick-off. Tell the bitch leave me alone.” With that he snatched up the soul-player and ran down to the river. I let him go.
Well, I figured that was that. It looked like Kerouac turned himself off by carrying the soul-player into the river and shorting it out…which was fine with me. Meeting him hadn’t been as much fun as I’d expected.
I didn’t want to face Karla with the news I’d lost her machine, so I biked over to my office to phone her up. For some reason Diaconescu was there, waiting for me. I was glad to see a human face.
“What’s happening, Ray?”
“Karla sent me. She saw you two from her window and phoned me to meet you here. You’re really in trouble, Alvin.”
“Look, it was her decision to lend me that machine. I’m sorry Kerouac threw it in the river and ruined it, but …”
“He didn’t ruin the machine, Alvin. That’s the point. The machine is waterproof.”
“Then where’d he go? I saw him disappear.”
“He went underwater, you idiot. To sneak off. It’s the most dangerous thing possible to have a dead soul in control of its own player.”
“Oh man. Are you sure you don’t have any weed?”
I filled my knapsack up with beer bought at a newsstand—they sell alcohol everywhere in Germany—and pedaled on home. The seven- kilometer bike-ride from my University office to our apartment in the Foreign Scholars Guest House was usually a time when I got into my body and cooled out. But today my mind was boiling. The death and depression coming off Kerouac had been overwhelming. What had that been in his eyes there? The pit of hell, it’d seemed like, a vortex ring sort of, a long twisty thread running through each of his eyes, and whoever was outside in the air here was variable. The thought of
not
being able to die terrified me more than anything I’d ever heard of: for me death had always seemed like sweet oblivion, a back-door to the burrow, a certain escape. But now I had the feeling that the dark vortex was there, full of thin hare screamers, ineluctable whether or not a soul-player was around to reveal it at this level of reality. The only thing worse than death is eternal life.
Back home my wife, Cybele, was folding laundry on our bed. The baby was on the floor crying.
“Thank God you came back early, Alvin. I’m going nuts. You know what the superintendent told me? He said we can’t put the dirty Pampers in the garbage, that it’s unsanitary. We’re supposed to tear them apart and flush the pieces, can you believe that? And he was so
rude
, all red-faced and puffing. Jesus I hate it here, can’t you get us back to the States?”
“Cybele, you won’t believe what happened today. I met Jack Kerouac. And now he’s on the loose.”
“I thought he died a long time ago.”
“He did, he did. This witch-girl, Karla? I met her over at Diaconescu’s?”
“The time you went without me. Left me home with the baby.”
“Yeah, yeah. She conjured up his ghost somehow, and I was supposed to keep control of it; keep control of Kerouac’s ghost, but we got drunk together and he freaked me out so much I let him get away.”
“You’re drunk now?”
“I don’t know. Sort of. I bought some beer. You want one?”
“Sure. But you sound like you’re off your rocker, Alvin. Why don’t you just sit down and play with the baby. Maybe there’s a cartoon on TV for you two.”
Baby Joe was glad to see me. He held out his arms and opened up his mouth wide. I could see the two little teeth on his bottom gum. His diaper was soaked. I changed him, being careful to flush the paper part of the old diaper, as per request. As usual with the baby, I could forget I was alive, which is, after all, the only thing that makes life worth living.
I gave Cybele a beer, opened one for myself, and sat down in front of the TV with the baby. The evening programs were just starting—there’s no daytime TV at all in Germany—and, thank God,
Zorro
was on. The month before they’d been showing old Marx brothers movies, dubbed of course, and now it was
Zorro
, an episode a day. Baby Joe liked it as much as I did.
But there was something fishy today, something very wrong. Zorro didn’t look like he was supposed to. No cape, no sword, no pointy mustache. It was vortex-eyed Kerouac there in his place, sniggering and stumbling over his lines. Instead of slashing a “Z” on a wanted poster, he just spit on it. Instead of defending the waitress’s honor during the big saloon brawl, he hopped over the bar and stole a fifth of tequila. When he bowed to the police-chief’s daughter, he hiccupped and threw up. At the big masquerade ball he jumped on stage and started shouting about Death and Nothingness. When the peasants came to him for help, he asked them for marijuana. And the whole time he had the soul-player’s strap slung over his shoulder.
After awhile I thought of calling Cybele.
“Look at this, baby! It’s unbelievable. Kerouac’s on TV instead of Zorro. I think he can see me, too. He keeps making faces.”
Cybele came and stood next to me, tall and sexy. Instantly Kerouac disappeared from the screen, leaving old cape ‘n’ sword Zorro in his place. She smiled down at me kindly. “My Alvin. He trips out on acid but he still comes home on time. Just take care of Joe while I fix supper, honey. We’re having pork stew with sauerkraut.”
“But …”
“Are you so far gone you don’t remember taking it? The Black-Star that Dennis DeMentis sent you last week. I saw you put it in your knapsack this morning. You can’t fool me, Alvin.”
“But …”
She disappeared into our tiny kitchen and Kerouac reappeared on the screen, elbowing past the horses and soldiers to press his face right up to it.
“Hey, Al,” said the TV’s speaker in Kerouac’s voice. “You’re going crazy croozy whack-a-doozy.”
“Cybele! Come here!”
She came running out of the kitchen, and this time Kerouac wasn’t fast enough; she saw him staring out at us like some giant goldfish. He started to withdraw, then changed his mind.
“Are you Al’s old lady love do hop his heart on?”
“Really, Cybele,” I whispered. “My story’s true. That Black-Star’s in my desk at school and Kerouac’s ghost’s inside our TV.”
“A beer for blear, dear.” The screen wobbled like Jello and Kerouac wriggled out into our living room. He stank of dead fish. In one hand he held that stolen bottle of tequila, and his other hand cradled the soul-player.
“Just don’t look in his eyes,” I cautioned Cybele. Baby Joe started crying.
“Be pope, ti Josie,” crooned Jack. “Dad’s in a castle, Ma’s wearing a shell, nothing’s the matter, black Jack’s here from Hell.”
I’d only had one sip of my beer, so I just handed it over to him. “Isn’t there any way out?” I asked him. “Any way into Nothingness?”
Just then someone started pounding on our door. Cybele went to open it, walking backwards so she could keep an eye on Kerouac. He took a hit of tequila, a pull of beer, and lit one of the reefers the peasants had given him.
“
Black-jack
means
sap
,” he said. “That’s me.”
It was Karla at the door. Karla and Ray Diaconescu. Before Jack could do anything, they’d run across the room and grabbed him. He was clumsy from all the booze, and Karla was able to wrest the soul-player away from him.
“Turn it off now, Alvin,” she urged. “You turned it on and you have to be the one to turn it off. It only worked because you know Jack so well.”
“How about it, Jack?” I looked over at him. His eyes were swirling worse than ever. You could almost feel a breeze from air rushing into them.
He gave a tight smile and passed me his reefer. “Bee-a-zlast on, brother. They call this Germany? I call it the Land of Nod. Friar Tuck awaits her shadowy pleasure. The cactus-shapes of nowhere night.”
“Do you want me to turn it off or what? I can’t give the player back to you. You’ll drive me nuts. But anything else, man, I mean I know your pain.”
Suddenly he threw an arm around my neck and dragged me up against him. Karla, still holding the soul-player, gasped and took a step back. Kerouac’s voice was harsh in my ear.
“
I knew a guy who died
. That’s what Corso says about me now. Only I didn’t. He’s keeping me in the whirlpool, you are. Let me in, Al, carry me.” I tried to pull back, repelled by his closeness, his smell, but the crook of his arm held my neck like a vise. He was still talking. “Let me in your eyes, man, and I’ll keep quiet till you crack up. I’ll help you write. And you’ll end up in the whirly dark, too. Sweet and low from the foggy dew, corrupting the boys from Kentucky ham-spread dope-rush street sweets.”
He drew back then, and we stared into each other’s eyes; and I saw the thin hare screamers in the black pit same as before, only this time I jumped in, but really it jumped in me. All at once Jack was gone. I turned Karla’s machine off for her, saw her and Ray to the door, then had supper with Cybele and Baby Joe. And that’s how I became a writer.
============
Written in Spring, 1982.
New Blood
, July, 1982.
In 1982, the literary arm of the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, was directed by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, and was indeed called The Jack Kerouac Disembodied School of Poetics.
I did meet a woman in Germany who gave me a Xerox of Neal Cassady’s and Jack Kerouac’s letters to each other. Kerouac is, of course, one of my all-time favorite writers, not so much for the sustained narrative arc of one novel, but rather for his sensibility and for the extreme beauty and originality of his language and phrasing.
The story which appears below is purported to be Robert Ackley’s first-person account of his strange disappearance. I am not quite sure if the account is really true…I rather hope, for Ackley’s sake, that it is not.