We started looking for a hotel, and none of them would rent us a room, because they thought we were trying to shack up. I didn’t have our marriage license, and no one would believe us. No one would rent us a room. In one hotel, somewhere right near Times Square, there was a long stairway with a desk at the top, and for some reason there was a policeman up there. I don’t know whether it was a house of prostitution that had been raided, but something obviously had happened not too long beforehand. And the cop was pretty nice. When we walked up and Neal told him we wanted a room, the cop told him, “Why don’t you just go find the back of a car or something?” You know, in other words, “You kids go shack up somewhere else, but don’t be trying to rent hotel rooms around here.” By this time, Neal was getting very irritated, he was just very upset, and he blew it.
Neal finally decided to try the St. George Hotel by himself. He said, “You wait downstairs,” and he went up and rented a single room. About an hour later, he came back down, and we got something to eat. Then he sneaked me up. I had to sneak up to get in the damned hotel, and our room was just a little tiny thing with a single bed in it, not even a double bed. Our window overlooked this alley—the world’s worst impression of New York City your first night there! But to us it was beautiful. We lay there looking out the window all night long, with Neal telling me all of his little dreams and hopes for our future and what was going to happen in the days ahead. He was so excited and so full of ambition!
The next morning, we went up to Columbia University and looked up Neal’s friends Hal Chase and Ed White. We hadn’t met Allen Ginsberg yet. Neal was very, very fond of Hal, and very close to him, and Hal introduced us to Allen the first day. So right away we moved to a boys’ dorm at Columbia, Livingston Hall. In the lobby there were all these couches and chairs, and we stayed there all day and half the night. Of course only Neal was allowed to go up to the rooms. But once, when they weren’t watching too closely, Neal sneaked me up into one of the fellas’ rooms.
I remember meeting Tom Livornese. He had dark, curly hair, and was a little more quiet than the others. He later said that all the guys were crazy about me, but I used to always feel so inadequate around all of them. In the first place, they were all so much older, and they all seemed so sophisticated, and so intelligent. I always felt like such a klutz around them. I loved every one of them, and I loved being around everything that was going on. They kind of treated me like one of the fellas—they really did! It wasn’t like any of them was trying to get me off into a corner—nothing like that—because they were all very involved with each other and the happenings of the day. There weren’t many women around, either—not that they weren’t looking at all times, when we’d go into the bars and things like that. But I was usually the only girl that was around, because Neal had to spend ninety-nine percent of his time with the guys, and of course I was lost without Neal. I was scared to death to be alone there, anyway.
It wasn’t long before I met Jack Kerouac too. Jack was on the quiet side, like Tom—at least at that time. He really wasn’t an extrovert like a lot of the guys. Most of the guys were saying, “Yeah, come on! Let’s go here! Let’s go there!” Hal was kind of in between—he wasn’t a total extrovert, but I wouldn’t call him quiet and reserved, the way Jack was. It always seemed if you were alone talking to Jack, or if you were on a one-to-one basis with him, he was interested in what you said, and always acted very nice. I adored Jack anyway because he always treated me terrific! I never felt quite so inadequate around Jack—he just had that knack. He never talked down to me—never!
But when there was a group of people, Jack more or less listened. He was not one of the more active participants in all the conversations that were going on. Allen did a lot of the talking, but no one talked as much as Neal.
It seems like I met Jack on our first full day in New York. I’m almost certain it was in that dormitory at Columbia, and not the way he described it in On the Road. He wrote about Neal opening the door in the nude, but that didn’t take place—at least when we first met Jack. There were several things in On the Road, actually lots and lots of little things, that Jack changed or just invented. That was one of the reasons he didn’t want us to read the book, but I’ll talk more about that later.
When we met Jack at Livingston Hall, several of the fellas were already there—five or six of them. Allen was there, probably Ed White too—I don’t remember who all. And then Jack happened to walk in. Well, Allen had been telling Neal that he wanted him to meet Jack, and then all of a sudden: “This is Jack Kerouac!” And of course when Jack came in, especially in those days, any girl couldn’t help looking at him. Jack commanded attention from the female because he was so pretty. He really was a handsome, handsome boy.