Lu Anne:
It didn’t take much time before Neal and I were heavily involved again—even though my fiancé hadn’t yet arrived back in town. Jack decided to return to New York, but in the meantime Jack and Neal would sometimes take me out together. Jack wrote in On the Road about the three of us going to hear a saxophone player at an all-black dance over in Oakland. The dance was in an all-black neighborhood, which none of us even thought about—just didn’t—because in Denver there were no neighborhoods a white person couldn’t go into. We weren’t that racially aware, I guess, because it came as kind of a shock when we went over there with this black saxophone player, who was a friend of Neal’s, and suddenly found ourselves in a hostile situation. The place wasn’t too full at the time; and when we walked in, Neal immediately went up to the bandstand with his friend. Jack and I walked over to a table, and I started to sit down. I was all dressed up in heels and a suit. Just as I’m taking my seat, this black guy in back of us pulled the chair out, and I went ploooof! I landed right on the floor. Jack didn’t know what to do. He jumped up immediately to help me up, and he was looking wildly around. We both suddenly became aware of the tension, which you could have cut with a knife. The hate in people’s eyes was fierce. It was like they were thinking, What are these intruders doing in our place?
None of us had experienced anything like that. It had never even entered our heads that the black people might not want us there. Neal was totally unaware of what was going on. I told Jack, “Just forget it. Let’s sit down, and don’t say anything.” But then I had to go to the restroom. We sat there, and Jack was getting more and more nervous. We were waiting for Neal to come back to the table to tell him, “Let’s get the hell out of here!” But Neal wasn’t coming back, so I finally got up and went into the restroom. Three black girls cornered me in there. I had to tell them I was a whore. Now, I knew absolutely nothing about whoredom! Not even the tiniest little hint of how they’re supposed to act. But that was the only way I could get out of that restroom without getting beaten up. They’re asking me, “You working this territory tonight?” I said, “Well, you know, I just thought I’d drop in.” I can still remember telling Jack about this stupid conversation. “I’m just droppin’ by.” I don’t know what I’m saying, even. All I know is that they’re not letting me out of that bathroom. They were hot!
When we finally got ahold of Neal and told him, “Let’s get the hell out of here!”—and tried to explain to him that things were not right—Neal called us crazy. He said, “You’re both nuts! Don’t be ridiculous!” When we walked out of there, it was like a mob scene in a movie. I wish Jack were here to tell you, because he was as scared as I was. You know how in those mob scenes, when someone’s trying to walk through, they have to just keep shoving to get a little space in front of them? Believe me when I tell you, when we were walking out of that place, that’s exactly how we went through that crowd. Thank God, this friend of Neal’s was off—he was taking a break—so he went first, and then Neal, and then me, and Jack in back of me. That crowd did not want to move to let us go through. You know, there would have been plenty of room, but the people had all moved in close around us, to block our way. Jack said he thought any minute he was gonna get a knife in the ribs.
Neal would go anywhere without even thinking. But until then, none of us had ever worried about racial problems either. We’d never encountered any kind of racial anger before. In Denver, we used to go to the Rossonian, over in Five Points, which was a black area, but we never encountered that kind of hostility. And let me tell you, it was a bum experience. It scared the hell out of Jack and I. I don’t think Neal really believed us even after we told him all the things that had happened while he was standing at the stage. Of course, he was loaded to begin with. But they had made it very, very clear that they didn’t want any part of us in their club. We were intruders there.
In that short period before Jack took the bus back to New York, I saw them both quite often. They would come and pick me up, and we’d go wherever. I didn’t get too much of a chance to talk to Jack. When he told me he was going back to New York, we both had a few tears and talked about our old plans to live together in New York. And he talked again about his coming back out here someday when we would both have our lives settled. He would have things straightened out, and I would have things straightened out. And in the meantime, the fella that I was supposedly engaged to would be back, and I would either do what I had promised—marry him—or else rid myself of the obligation—one or the other.
Lu Anne did marry Ray Murphy later in 1949, but it solved nothing for her.