Tensions built up quickly in the new year, 1949. Carolyn was virtually destitute with her new baby in San Francisco, and since no one else had any money to send her, Jack mailed her $18. Harcourt, Brace continued to delay in making a decision about Jack’s novel, and he wrote in his journal about having to fight off vague thoughts of killing himself. Ginsberg, doubtless frustrated that he now had two major female rivals for Neal’s love, grew pompous and scornful as he warned Neal about “driving his shiny car through the night for nothing.” For his part, Neal grew increasingly uneasy about the close rapport that was developing between Lu Anne and Jack. Hinkle recalled that Neal began deliberately pushing Jack into Lu Anne’s arms, knowing that the more he pushed, the more awkward Jack would feel, and thus the more unlikely it would be that a real romance would occur between them.
Something had to give somewhere, and the trigger was finally pulled by William Burroughs, who called from Algiers, Louisiana, to demand that somebody come and pick up Helen Hinkle, who had moved in with him while patiently awaiting the return of her husband. She was penniless and a burden to Burroughs, who was also probably uncomfortable to have her witnessing his many forays into the New Orleans underworld as he attempted to satisfy his heroin addiction.
For traveling money, Hinkle sold his leather jacket, and Jack withdrew what was left of his GI benefit checks from the bank. They headed south, to get away from the winter cold in New York, but didn’t get far before being pulled over by cops in Virginia—when Hinkle, then driving, passed a stopped school bus—and having most of their trip money taken away under threat of being put in jail. The remainder of the trip became the usual struggle of squeezing gas money out of hitchhikers and Neal pumping his own gas when the attendant was asleep or not looking.
Lu Anne:
When we got down to Algiers, down at Burroughs’s place, then I felt a change in Jack. He was doing a lot of talking alone with Bill, and there was a lot of stuff being discussed between them that they didn’t share with us. I got the impression when we were there that Bill was very unhappy with Neal. Bill didn’t show it in any way, or say anything in particular to us. It was the first time I had ever met him, and we didn’t talk a lot with each other, so it was something I felt more than anything he expressed directly. Because, during our stay there, Bill was very kind, very like an old friend. It was obvious he was very glad to see Jack. But I perceived—not a big difference, I can’t say that—but something subtle change inside Jack. Jack was still excited about the trip, and clearly happy being on this trip, but I felt something had begun to trouble him. I felt it was connected either with something he and Bill had discussed, or with some impression he’d gotten from Bill—maybe Bill putting Neal in a little bit different light for him. So I don’t really know what it was, but there was a definite change that I felt in Jack. He was no longer quite as exuberant over the whole trip.
The coming down to Algiers had been an absolute fantasy for us. We just really had a ball—like the night he described in On the Road. We were going through the bayous, and Jack was telling me about Lucien and David Kammerer, and describing in detail how Lucien had stabbed him to death one night in a dark park by the Hudson River. Of course, when we were kids we all used to listen to The Shadow Knows,13 you know, and such as that. We were all nuts about scary shows like that. And we had just been listening to some scary shows on the radio, which is how the subject came up. And then Jack got excited and couldn’t keep from telling me his own scary story. It was like he was telling a ghost story to a kid.