Afterward, Neal and I discussed the book many times. Well, in the beginning, Neal was thrilled. I mean, no one could have given Neal a finer compliment—in his eyes. He was proud that someone found him interesting enough to be written about, but especially someone that he thought so much of as Jack—someone he admired as much as he did Jack. The strange thing about the two of them, when they were with each other, it seemed like they were totally unaware of the other one’s real feelings. This was true even for Neal—even though he knew Jack had written so much about him. I mean, they knew that they cared for each other; but I think on both of their parts they felt the friendship was unequal. They, Jack and Neal, each felt it was more on their part than it was on the other side. Do you understand what I’m saying?
They were both very envious of one another. It never interfered with their association, but it was a very obvious thing when you’d see them together. Everything that Neal was, Jack would want—had wanted—would like to be. And everything that Jack was, Neal would have given his right arm to be, or to have. Neal not only envied the schooling Jack had; he also envied the football thing, the athletic ability, the good looks, the ability to sit down and write the way Jack did. There were just so many things Neal didn’t have that had come naturally to Jack. And on the other hand, on Jack’s part, he envied Neal for his powers with women, of course; but he also envied Neal’s whole attitude, the confidence that Neal projected that Jack lacked. Neal’s ability to go anywhere and to act sure of himself was something Jack was very envious of Neal about. I think the women part of it was a small part. I mean, Jack was very envious of Neal’s ability to talk to women so easily, and talk them into anything so easily, but I think that’s on any man’s mind.
The tragedy was that they never seemed to be aware of how great, how deep, were the feelings each one had for the other. Maybe in later years they started to understand a little. But I know in the beginning years they didn’t. Neal was always apologizing to Jack. Like when Neal would write letters to him, it was a constant series of apologies. “I’m sorry, well you know how I can’t write,” Neal would always begin. “I can’t write letters—I’m lousy at letter writing,” and blah blah blah. It was torture for him to write to Jack because he felt so inadequate because of Jack’s writing. Neal even felt that his handwriting was bad, and he didn’t feel that he expressed himself well.
Neal Cassady and Natalie Jackson, San Francisco, 1954 or 1955. (Photo courtesy of Anne Marie Santos.)
On the one hand, I think when Jack made Neal the hero of On the Road, it changed Neal’s whole life. He was extremely proud, but I think it also started a thing with Neal that he felt he had to live up to. On the Road put Neal on a road of what I would call self-denial. I don’t know if that word is applicable or not, but that’s what it seemed to me. Neal would deny himself certain things—things that he would have done, or would like to have done and might have done—simply because of this image of him that was growing in people’s minds and that he felt he had to keep up with, the image of Dean Moriarty from the book. There was this image now that people had of him—in a way, it meant he had to start performing for Jack, and for other people too. I don’t mean it was necessarily just about how Neal related to Jack. I think Neal felt he had to perform, period—especially as the years went by. Because, when Neal was young, he did have a great deal of ambition, and somehow that just disappeared.
I know that we all look at Neal in different ways, but I was maybe the only person that Neal stayed close to through all the years; Neal stayed in touch with me always. He came to me almost any time there was some kind of a trauma in his life—like when Natalie Jackson committed suicide.23 That happened in the fall of 1955, when Jack was out here for that big poetry reading. I didn’t see him then, but I stayed with Neal for two weeks after Natalie’s death. I really, really was worried about him. I thought, if Neal ever came close to suicide, that was it, because he felt he had let her down. I think that was a big turning point in Neal’s life too, because every girl he ever brought to me after that seemed to be a girl that he felt needed him, a girl that had some kind of problems. Not necessarily problems with paying the rent or that kind of thing, but psychological problems. After Natalie’s death, it seemed like the girls he was being drawn to were the ones that really leaned on him—because he felt he’d really let Natalie down so badly, and he was somehow trying to make it up by helping other girls who were troubled in a similar way.
It was a very bad period for him after Natalie died. When he called me, for the first two days all we did was sit together in their apartment, and he just wanted to tell me about her. I just let him talk. He had little notes that she had written him and left for him. I guess she went out to the roof when he was sleeping or loaded or whatever. And he would read these notes over and over and over, trying to find something in them that would take him off the hook—do you know what I mean? Anything that would show he wasn’t to blame for her death.
I’ve heard people say that the things Jack wrote about Neal in On the Road were the things Neal was least proud of. If that’s true, the book would only have added to all this guilt he was already carrying around.
PART SIX