His mother-in-law was in the house cooking beans and frijoles and whatever. He was just sitting there at a little table with his typewriter, and it was hot, my God! I don’t know what the temperature would have been there in Arizona in February, but it was hot, and he was sitting out there in the middle of nowhere, banging away on the typewriter. There was just his house with a little shed next to it. I think they had a cow and maybe a few other animals—that’s what the shed was for. Those were the only things he owned.
It was still early when we arrived, and later in the day he took us over to a wealthy woman’s house—a woman who was in her early fifties. She had this big young man—a young kid, you know, with a beard—and she was supporting him while he wrote. Her house was a beautiful, beautiful hacienda. I mean, it was luxury from the word go. Neal and this would-be writer and everybody got loaded—very drunk—and the writer made a pass at me. Neal walked in just when he was kissing me. Then Neal and he got into a big argument; and while they were fighting, Jack and I started dancing. Of course, this patron of the arts had a stereo—at that time, not too many people had stereos—and she had all this fancy sound equipment, all built-in and everything. Jack and I ignored the whole jealousy situation—as Neal got angrier and angrier, we just played music and kept on dancing. We spent most of the time at her house Nijinsky-ing.
The guy stood up to Neal, and that’s when Neal hit the ceiling. Neal was so mad that he finally made us leave. So off we went, back over to Alan Harrington’s house; and we had to say good-bye, because he had no place for us to stay. Jack would have liked to have stayed for a couple of days, but there really was no place for us there.
Anyway, it wasn’t too much longer before we got to San Francisco. When Neal had something on his mind, he could be very abrupt and just push everything else aside. He was determined to go back to Carolyn. Of course, he was happy to be home, at that point. That happiness wouldn’t last very long, but at that point seeing Carolyn again was all he could think about. He just literally dropped Jack and I on the middle of the sidewalk, and said, “I’ll call you guys!” And off he went!
Jack and I just sort of looked at each other. And Jack was hurt—he really and truly was. I was used to it. I knew Neal, and I knew what to expect. I also knew he would be back—with as much enthusiasm as he had left with. But nonetheless, that was something Jack hadn’t expected because it was so sudden. I mean, there really were no preliminaries. There was no leading up to the subject—no hints that he was about to depart. He didn’t bother to say, “Don’t worry, I’ll call you tomorrow at ten o’clock,” or even just, “I’ll see you guys.” It really did hurt Jack badly.
We hadn’t really made any specific plans of what we were gonna do when we got back to San Francisco; nobody had any real plans. But of course Jack had assumed Neal was gonna spend some time with him. On the one hand, you might say it was kind of arranged by Neal—or something Neal expected—that Jack and I would spend time together. That was expected only on Neal’s part. Well, not only on Neal’s part—I shouldn’t say that. But it was expedient for Neal at that point for Jack and I to get together as a couple. That way he didn’t have to worry about either one of us. Of course, Neal had started suggesting this back in New York, started suggesting that we should get involved with each other. That was something Jack and I were already feeling on our own, anyway. Neal had talked to us already there, about how nice it would be if Jack and I had a little romance; but the fact is, nobody needed to push it. Jack was already heading in that direction himself; and the thing was, Neal was very much aware of it. And Neal could never, never bear something like that to occur unless he was the one who instigated it. You see what I mean?
Jack Kerouac, Carolyn Cassady, Al Hinkle, Al’s son Mark, and Carolyn’s children, Jami and Cathy, San Francisco, 1952. (Photo courtesy of Al Hinkle.)
Neal knew it was happening. He also knew that Jack, being the way he was, and me being the way I was, that it probably wouldn’t have come until Neal was ready to go back to Carolyn. And we knew we would have to wait—because once he went back to Carolyn, he could have no recriminations about Jack taking his girl or me not remaining faithful to him. Neal didn’t like us setting our own timetable, so he thought that he would start the ball rolling—which, like I said, was totally unnecessary. And neither one of us picked up the ball in New York, as Neal expected, because I think we—Jack and I—did care very much about Neal’s feelings, and how all this would look to people. But still, the attraction between Jack and I was growing, and it was something that had nothing to do with Neal. That bothered him badly.