On the Road: The Original Scroll

by Jack Kerouac

“All over the world, in the jungles of Mexico, in backstreets of Shanghai, in New York cocktail bars, husbands are getting drunk while the women stay home with the babies of the everdarkening future. If these men stop the machine and come home—and get on their knees—and ask for forgiveness—and the women bless them—peace will suddenly descend on the earth with a great silence like the inherent silence of the Apocalypse.”

In all, what Neal was, simply, was tremendously excited with life, and though he was a con-man he was only conning because he wanted so much to live and also to get involved with people that would otherwise pay no attention to him.

And here for the first time in my life I saw my beloved Mississippi River---dry in the summer haze, low-water, with its big rank smell that smells like the raw body of America itself because it washes it up.

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 suddenly began to realize that everybody in America is a natural born thief. I was getting the bug myself.

L.A. is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities; New York gets godawful cold in the winter but there’s a feeling of whacky comradeship somewhere in some streets. L.A. is a jungle.

My mother once said the world would never find peace until men fell at their women’s feet and asked for forgiveness.

This is the result of years looking at dirty pictures behind bars; looking at the legs of women in magazines; evaluating the hardness of the steel halls and the softness of the woman who is not there. Jail is where you promise yourself the right to live.

The purity of the road. The white line in the middle of the hiway unrolled and hugged our left front tire as if glued to our groove.

The American police are involved in psychological warfare against those Americans who don’t frighten them with imposing papers and threats. There’s no defense. Poor people have to expect to have their lives interfered with ad infinitum by these neurotic busybodies.

We got out of the car for air and suddenly both of us were stoned with joy to realize that in the darkness all around us was fragrant green grass and the smell of fresh manure and warm waters. “We’re in the South! We’ve left the winter!”

At dusk we were coming into the humming streets of New Orleans. “Oh smell the people!” yelled Neal with his face out the window sniffing. “Ah! God! Life!”

Finally I took a walk alone to the Levee. I wanted to sit on the muddy bank and dig the Mississippi River;

Now we were on the great Texas plain and as Neal said “You drive and drive and you’re still in Texas tomorrow night.”

We were parked in the mountains: There was a heaven of sunrise, cool purple airs, red mountainsides, emerald pastures in valleys, dew, and transmuting clouds of gold; on the ground gopher holes, cactus, mesquite. It was time for me to drive on.

My whole wretched life swam before my weary eyes, and I realized no matter what you do it’s bound to be a waste of time in the end so you might as well go mad.

At the end of the American road is a man and a woman making love in a hotel room. That’s all I wanted.

“Now really Jack let’s dig everything as we go along…”

darkness came across Neal’s face, and from that moment on in Denver he reverted to his youthful days of violence and bitterness. It was him against Denver as long as we were there.

Everybody thinks about money, money, money.

Neal and I were delighted to be in the police station, it was just like home, we had a wonderful time. The cops were sort of pleased with us. Another step and we’d be getting the hose in the backroom and screaming with delight---maybe.

Here was a young kid like Neal had been; his blood boiled too much for him to bear; his nose opened up; but no native strange saintliness to save him from the iron fate.

Again I was back in the soft dark Denver night with its holy alleys and crazy houses. We started hitting all the bars in town, roadhouses out on West Colfax, Five Points Negro bars, the works.

Now we pointed our rattly snout South and headed for Castle Rock Colorado as the sun turned red and turned the rock of the Mountains to the West to look like a Brooklyn brewery in November dusks.

Behind us lay the whole continent of America and everything Neal and I had previously known about life, and life on the road. We had finally found the magic land at the end of the road and we never dreamed the extent of the magic either.

We took off our T shirts and roared through the jungle barechested. No towns, nothing, just jungle, miles and miles, and down-going, getting hotter, the insects screaming louder, the vegetation growing higher, the smell ranker and hotter until we began to get used to it and like it and love it. “I’d

The whole town had instantly gone to bed, the only noise now was barking dogs. How could I ever sleep? Thousands of mosquitos had already bitten all of us on chest and arms and ankles, there was nothing to do but give in to it and even enjoy.

He drove like an Indian. He got on a circular drive on Reforma Boulevard and rolled around it with its eight spokes shooting cars at us from all directions, left, right, dead ahead, and yelled and jumped with joy. “This is traffic I’ve always dreamed of! Everybody GOES!”