When we were in North Carolina, Jack asked us to move some furniture to New York for his mother. It was his sister’s furniture; she was moving and giving the furniture to her mom. So Neal, Al, and I agreed to take the furniture to New York, to Jack’s mom’s apartment, and of course Jack had to come with us, to show us where to put the stuff. That was probably why his mother acted a little more kindly toward us, because Neal was doing her a service at least. On the first trip, we could only take part of the load. Then Jack and Neal turned around and went right back to North Carolina and loaded up the rest of it. I’m pretty sure they put it in a little trailer, because the Hudson certainly couldn’t have carried all the furniture. They brought his mother back to New York on that second trip too.
While Jack and Neal made that trip back to North Carolina, Al Hinkle and I went down to the local pawn shop, and this time I pawned my diamond engagement ring and my watch too. Al and I were staying up at his mother’s apartment, and I remember leaving the apartment that day and walking it seemed like miles before we found the pawn shop. It wasn’t an easy thing for me to do, and I never did get either one of them back. But at least we had a few bucks now to live on, and we wouldn’t be broke when his mother got back. But I ended up being terribly embarrassed anyway, because the day they got back I had clothes hanging all over his mother’s apartment. I was trying to wash all my and Neal’s and Al’s clothes out, so that at least we would have some clean clothes, and I had them hanging through the kitchen and the bathroom and everywhere! Here we were in someone else’s apartment, and it was like we were taking over the place. But again, his mom was really very nice about it. She didn’t get mad at all.
Al Hinkle with pipe, no date. (Photo courtesy of Al Hinkle.)
During that period, while we stayed with Jack and his mom, Jack was writing a great deal. I always remember him sitting at his typewriter there in the apartment. If I’m not mistaken, he was still working on The Town and the City then.11 I also remember him working on a story about Neal, but he had turned Neal into the son of a rancher from California. Neal told me about it. He said Jack had given him an Ed Uhl type of history. Jack was using Ed Uhl’s life on a Colorado ranch for background about the character based on Neal.12
Of course we couldn’t stay at Jack’s apartment forever. It was way out in Queens. After we’d been there a while, we went on down into Manhattan and moved into Allen Ginsberg’s apartment. When we first got there, Allen wasn’t working; he was with us a great deal. But then he got a job working nights at a newspaper. All that he had was a living room with a couch and a Japanese table, and then a little tiny bedroom about as big as a bathroom, with just a single cot in it. We were sleeping in shifts, so to speak.
Allen Ginsberg, circa 1952. (Photo by John Kingsland.)
Allen would come home from work at maybe six or seven in the morning, and climb in with Neal and I. God only knows how the three of us managed on that little cot, but Neal was trying to be generous with his attention. So Allen would have his head on one shoulder, and I would have my head on the other. But there was no place for Al Hinkle except the couch; and Al being as tall as he was, he had his problems on that damn couch! But we managed. And by the time Allen got his job, we were getting ready to leave anyway.
I remember cooking spaghetti for us in the dishpan several times. I had to go down the hall to borrow any kind of cleaning implements, brooms and such as that, to keep the apartment clean. But we had some good times that trip. Jack was there constantly. You might as well say that he was living with us. He must have gone home once in a while, but he was sleeping here and there, making whatever arrangements he needed to, so that he could spend ninety-nine percent of his time with us.