What a motley crew we were, my God, by the time we got to Jack’s house in North Carolina! Jack’s sister had a turkey on the table, which may be another reason I’ve got Thanksgiving in my head. I had on a pair of Neal’s white gas-station coveralls—which he also had on a pair of. We’d been in the car all those days, and I didn’t have many clothes to begin with.
Jack wasn’t embarrassed at all. He was absolutely fantastic. It was one of the things that impressed me, because I hadn’t seen him in so long. Neal had been back to New York on his own, because he had gone down to Texas to be with Allen and William Burroughs, and then he’d driven Burroughs’s load of pot to New York.10 In any case, Jack’s welcome was the most welcome thing in the world—not one bit of embarrassment at all. “Come in! Come in! Come in!” he kept saying. “You’re finally here!” And he was so happy, there wasn’t a trace of “Gee, Mom, I’m sorry” in his voice. Just welcome, total welcome. Neal was usually kind of oblivious to the impression he might be making, but Al and I both felt a little embarrassed in front of Jack’s mother and sister. There we were, so crummy and dirty, and we were hungry too, oh my God! When I think back to it, anything they offered us would have sounded fantastic. And when Jack said, “Come on in and eat!” we were so happy we couldn’t believe it, but we were also a little afraid to take him up on it. But Neal immediately headed straight into the kitchen. There was never any embarrassment on his part in things like that, because when someone said, “Come on in and eat,” Neal took them at their word. That was one of the good things about Neal. He accepted what people said, until they showed him different. Neal just couldn’t move fast enough getting to that food! Al and I sort of trailed hesitantly behind him, looking over his shoulder at the turkey and all the trimmings. Oh my God, were we hungry!
This was the first time I’d met Jack’s mother, and I was scared to death of her for what I’d heard. I hadn’t met her previous to North Carolina. I had heard that she didn’t welcome Jack’s friends too readily—and especially people of Neal’s type! Neal had told me that she and he had not gotten along too well in the past. It might not even have been anything that she voiced, but just something that Neal felt. But he at least thought he was not too welcome at her house. So naturally, if you’re with someone you know isn’t welcome, you don’t feel too at ease; but she really and truly was very gracious to us. For total strangers to come walking into your home like that, she certainly didn’t treat us as unwelcome. Al and I both mentioned later how comfortable she’d made us feel. I was prepared for her to tell us to “get the hell out!”—but that didn’t happen at all.
The kindness I sensed was just in the way she acted toward us. I don’t remember her talking to us very much. As for his sister, Nin, I only saw her just that one day when we were there; and as I remember, she just sort of reflected his mother, really. I don’t remember feeling any particular out-of-the-way welcome from Nin, but I don’t really have much of a recollection of her. She always seemed to blend in with his mother in my mind. I understand that Nin died fairly young, even before Jack. I think it must have been hard on Gabrielle when Nin died, especially since it took place in the sixties, when Jack was drinking so heavily. But Neal told me a secret—he told me that Jack’s mom used to drink with him!
Now at first I had some doubts whether this was true. Neal could sometimes be cruel, and at first I didn’t believe him. I told Neal, “You’re telling me a story!”—because in my memory she certainly was not the kind of woman who’d sit and hoist a few! But Neal said, “I’m telling you that she gets loaded with Jack!” The thing was that she would rather sit and get loaded with Jack than have him go out to a bar and get drunk with someone else. Having known her the way she was, how close she felt to Jack, I could well understand that. But I still thought it was carrying things a bit far, for her to start drinking heavily at her age. Neal insisted, “It’s the truth—she drinks right along with Jack.” It’s hard for me to imagine her like that—drinking her Southern Comfort, which is ungodly sweet stuff, unless you drink it with soda and lemon. That was the first thing I ever tried to drink, by the way, which is why I remember it so much! When I was about fifteen, I got sick as a dog on it.