Neal,
I’ve suddenly realized at this late date that you’re my what? I don’t know what really, all I know is that as I’m sitting here in Tampa I can’t stand the thought of not knowing you. I can’t put down what I’m feeling & yet I’m trying. I wonder can I put down the emotion within me, even when I’m with another, someday, someway, I’m listening to Frank Sinatra. Oh Neal I love you. Have you ever just sat & wrote what you felt. I feel you as much now as when I was sixteen. I don’t know if you’re a hangover or am I mad. I’ve made so many moves, but not until this last year have I realized why. Neal please. I started to say please help me & I don’t really know if it was pride or once again I’m stumped. I’m sitting here with my head in my hand trying to say the right thing. What is the right thing. Even when I say I love you I cringe. You’ve dominated most of my life, & if I could feel your arms around me I could go on forever. Is that theatrical? I’m just talking baby. Just anything to ease some of this torment. Somehow you’ve become like some irritation on the skin and keep getting bigger and bigger & even when you squeeze it, no it’s not gone, just a permanent scar (forever). Is that the way it is. I hate to think I’m a martyr [?], and yet do I. I don’t really know & once again I’m back to saying please help me not in the usual sense, but I started to say because we’re friends. I love you or whatever it is Neal & can’t get over it. You have to teach me, tell me know me & mostly I want you to love me with your lips, your eyes, your hands & as always just to have you walk to me, you make love to me. I’m afraid Neal that you left me as a child & will once again find me the same, I take that back. I just got mad at myself for thinking that, you won’t find me a child, maybe in ways, but talk to me & love me & you’ll find I’m a woman, but more than that, you’ll find I’m a woman you’ve molded without ever being near. I know how you think, but regardless you motivated more things in my life than anyone living.
[The letter breaks off, unsigned.]
A Daughter’s Recollection by Anne Marie Santos
Lu Anne presenting trophy to the winner of the Midget Auto Races, Denver, 1944 or 1945. (Photo courtesy of Anne Marie Santos.)
My Mother was Lu Anne, the model for “Marylou” in On the Road. She is known to most of the literary world as Lu Anne Henderson, although she was born Cora Lu Anne Bullard.
She also had the surnames Cassady, Murphy, Catechi, and Skonecki. Each one of these names represents a husband: Neal Cassady, Ray Murphy, Sam Catechi, and Bob Skonecki. But each also represents a different time in her life. Even more than that, they really were clear and separate lives—each having the joys and sorrows of love found and lost. Mother always spoke with love and kindness of all of these men with whom she shared her life, though in later years she would reflect on the hardships she endured while living with some of them. All of these husbands—including eventually even Ray Murphy, from whom she’d initially had to hide for a couple of years after their divorce—remained loving toward her, just as almost all the people she met throughout her life remained her friends. She was one of those people who drew others in to want to know her. She invited you in by her smile and sparkling eyes. Her gentle, warm greeting, “Hi honey,” got them at the first hello. Being pretty, smart, humble, caring, and a good listener didn’t hurt either. I always describe her as a cross between Auntie Mame and Holly Golightly.
Lu Anne, age 16, Peetz, Colorado. (Photo courtesy of Anne Marie Santos.)