« On the road » de Jack Kerouac (1957)

We approached the lights around the opera house down the narrow dark street; then we took a sharp right and hit some old saloons with swinging doors. Most of the tourists were in the opera. We started off with few extra-size beers. There was a player piano. Beyond the back door was a view of mountainsides in the moonlight. I let out a yahoo. The night was on.

You gotta, you gotta or you’ll die! Damn fool, talk to her! What’s wrong with you? Aren’t you tired enough of yourself by now? And before I knew what I was doing I leaned across the aisle to her…

Without coming to any particular agreement we began holding hands, and in the same way it was mutely and beautifully and purely decided that when I got my hotel room in LA she would be beside me. I ached all over for her …

Ah, it was a fine night, a warm night, a wine-drinking night, a moony night, and a night to hug your girl and spit and be heaven going. This we did.

Ed Dunkel said to me, “Last night I walked clear down to Times Square and just as I arrived I suddenly realized I was a ghost - it was my ghost walking on the sidewalk.” He said this things to me without comment, nodding his head emphatically. Ten hours later, in the midst of someone else conversation, Ed said, “Yep, it was my ghost walking on the sidewalk”.

When he gets warmed up he takes off his shirt and undershirt and really goes. He does and says anything that comes into his head. He’ll sing “Cement Mixer, Put-ti, Put-ti” and suddenly slow down the beat and brood over his bongos with fingertips barely tappin the skins everybody as leans forward breathlessly to hear; you think he’ll do this for a minute or so, but he goes right on, for as long as an hour, making an imperceptible little noise with the tips of his fingernails, smaller and smaller all the time till you can’t hear it any more and sounds of the traffic come in the open door. Then he slowly gets up and takes the mike and says, very slowly: ”Great-orooni… fine-ovanti… hello-orooni…boubon-orooni…all-orooni… how are the boys in the front row making out with their girls - orooni…oroooni.orooni…vauti…oroonirooni…” He keeps this up for fifteen minutes, his voice getting softer and softer till you can’t hear.

There were a lot of Mexican girls too, and one amazing little girl about three feet high, a midget, with the most beautiful and tender face in the world, who turned to her companion and said, “Man, let’s call up Gomez and cut out.” Dean stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of her. A great Knife stabbed him from the darkness of the night. “Man, I love her, oh love her…” We had to follow her around for a long time.

The farmer charged us five dollars. His daughters watched in the rain. The prettiest, shyest one hid far back in the field to watch and she had good reason because she was absolutely and finally the most beautiful girl Dean and I ever saw in all our lives. She was about sixteen, and had Plains complexion like wild roses, and the bluest eyes, the most lovely hair, and the modesty and quickness of a wild antelope. At every look from us she flinched. She stood there with the immense winds that blew clear down from Saskatchewan knocking her hair about her lovely head like shrouds, living curls of them. She blushed, and she blushed.

… that season ending when we were all driving on Hollywood Boulevard one night and I told my buddy to steer the car while I kissed my girl - I was at the wheel, see -and he didn’t hear me and we ran smack into a post  but only going twenty and I broke my nose.