The second occasion I met Jack in San Francisco, in 1957, we had a better time together. I met him up on Grant Avenue, and we left there and went out to Golden Gate Park, where we spent the whole afternoon. When we first met and we started talking, he was the same old, soft, loving Jack. And then, as the afternoon wore on, he started making more and more trips across the street to this bar—I still know exactly where it is. It was called the “Park” something. I went over with him a couple of times. We sat down and had a couple of drinks together. But it surprised me how he began to change after he’d been drinking for a couple of hours. How could I describe it? He became totally unlike himself, totally unlike the Jack that I had known. He was opinionated about things, and Jack had never been that way. I mean, of course Jack had had opinions, but not like now. Now he was expounding on certain things; and as he drank, he just seemed like he grew harder, like he wasn’t gonna let any feelings come through. Or like he wanted to forget the feelings he had. I can’t quite explain it. It was like he didn’t want to let himself show any of the old tenderness he used to feel for me.
Actually, in the beginning of our visit, it had been tender and beautiful. And then, as the day wore on, it was as though he just started speaking in clichés. “Don’t let anything bother you!” he’d proclaim in this loud voice. It was this slaps-on-the-back kind of talk. It was like he was bluffing happiness, pretending to be happy when he really wasn’t. He had changed. Like I said, I had seen Neal change. But usually when Neal and I were together, Neal was still Neal. I saw a tremendous change in Neal, but Neal was still Neal when we were together and we talked. But Jack, when he was drinking at least, became someone I didn’t recognize. I wasn’t around him often enough in those days to see if it was a superficial thing, just for then—that particular afternoon when he had to deal with me—or if he acted that way all the time. The drinking put on a veneer that didn’t let any feelings through, and he wanted it there. I mean, he seemed to be able to handle himself better then. When he was drinking, he could tell people whatever he felt like saying. I don’t know. Neal and Jack both changed.
Jack Kerouac in his study, Northport, Long Island, 1964. (Photo by Jerry Bauer.)
The change definitely occurred as he was drinking. I think part of it at least had to be the alcohol. I wasn’t around him that much, where I could say, Oh, well, maybe it was just the association of us being together again. I really can’t be that good of a judge. But to me it seemed like the alcohol was doing something to his brain. As he continued drinking, he just was dropping all the things that used to make Jack up. And yet something else was going on too. I know that, being there with me, feelings were being dredged up again, and memories of happier times.
In the beginning, in the early afternoon, it was almost like going back in time with him. Like when we were down in Algiers visiting Burroughs, we went over to New Orleans together. I don’t know what happened to Neal. But Jack and I had been smoking some pot, and it was also early afternoon. Jack and I were laying on some grass, and we were looking up at the clouds. You know how, when you were a kid, you would see things in the clouds? We must’ve laid there for three hours, telling each other all of the things we saw in the clouds. We had like three hours of fantastic conversation, just sharing our imaginations with one another. “Do you see this over there?” I’d say, and then he’d say, “Do you see that?” And I would see something over there that related to what he saw. It just went on and on like that. But later on, when we went to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco that afternoon and we both laid down—we were sitting down together, but we both finally laid back—and Jack was holding my hand, we started talking and remembering, just kind of being together. Then, for some reason, he brought up that afternoon in New Orleans, and he talked about seeing things in the clouds. And he said, “I don’t see anything in the clouds anymore.”
He wasn’t just talking about the sky in Golden Gate Park that day. He made it very plain that he was telling me about a big change in his life. He said, “I have seen nothing in the clouds anymore—absolutely nothing.” He had been through so many years when nobody was publishing his books, when he had no money and his mother had to continue to support him. He was continually being rejected; the publishers were telling him his writings were no good. He’d gone through so many years of scraping and struggling. Under those circumstances, it’s hard to keep up your belief in yourself. Because he did have a lot of belief in himself—he really did. But there was a big change in Jack in those years, and the struggles must have taken a hell of a lot out of him. I wanted to just put my arms around him and tell him, “You know, it’s all going to be okay now.” But he made it such a way that I couldn’t have done that. I mean, maybe he was letting me know: “Don’t.” Maybe he couldn’t have handled that kind of thing at that time. I don’t know. Because I sure wanted to—I wanted to get close and talk to him.