“I am Father John McGillicuddy.”
Slim sez “Ain’t you the guy that managed the Philadelphia Phillies?”
“No, that was Cornelius McGillicuddy, some distant cousin … Philadelphia Athletics … I am Father John McGillicuddy, Society of Jesus, Jesuit Order. Now little Jackson Picture you want to go up sing in the choir? What’s your favorite tune?”
Grandpa I told him Our Father Which Art in Heaven, coulda made Lulu cry to hear me sing like that in her porch.
So Father McGillicuddy took me up to the attic LOFT, and sat me by the man with his hands on the keys of the ORGAN. Grandpa, I even whistled and I wished I had my harmonica, and the priest man sang up and said I sung up like an angel.
By the by, Slim was present down at the cellar moppin up the floor, he said he sure wisht he had his horn, but said he found a horn in his little brother’s voice.
So we told Father McGillicuddy soon’s we pick up one hunnerd dollars pay we would fetch for Oakland on the Greyhound Bus, but Father McGillicuddy said it was comin up close to Sunday mornin, as it was Adventist or adventurous night now, and Saturday too, and wanted me to sing before the intire congregation the Lord’s Prayer, which I done, up in the LOFT, like best I could. Father McGillicuddy was s’tickled he was sunrise all over. Them Irish mans is so tickled they’s pink as a shoat all over, but I feasable say they got troubles of their own, so we had our hunnerd dollars and took the road bus with the picture of the blue hound dog on the side of it, Greyhound it’s called, and we peewetted across Ohia and clear inta Nebraskar, Slim was asleep in the back seat all alone stretched out legs all over, and I was sittin in a reg’lar seat near-up with a ninety-year-old white man, and when we come to a stop just before Kearney, Nebraskar, the old man said to me:
“I gotta go to the toilet.”
So I led him out of the bus holdin his hand, ’case he was about to fall in the snow, and ask the gas man where was the men’s room. Finished, I took the old man back in the bus, and the bus driver yelled out:
“Somebody’s drinkin around here!”
And the bus driver was wearin black gloves. Two men was in the front seat next to him holdin hands together.
Slim was still snorin on the back-seat bed. Then he got up said to me:
“Hi, baby.”
First thing you know, no more snow. Heard another old man behind me say “I’m goin back to Oroville and bank my dust.”
We then was now in the Sacramenty Valley, grandpa, and quick we saw Sheila’s ropelines with wash on hooks of wood hung dryin, flappety-flap.
Slim, he put his two hands on his back, limpied around the yard, and said, “I got Arthur-itis, Bus-itis, Road-itis, Pic-itis and ever’ other It-is in the world.”
And Sheila run up, kissed him hungarianly, and we went in eat the steak she saved up for us, with mashy potatoes, pole beans, and cherry banana spoon ice cream split.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JACK KEROUAC was born in 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts, and died in 1969 in St. Petersburg, Florida. He grew up in Lowell, and later attended Columbia in New York. Leaving school, he sailed with the merchant marine to various Atlantic and Mediterranean ports, and roamed over much of the United States. His first book, The Town and the City, was published in 1950. Unable to find a publisher for On the Road, he spent the next six years “writing whatever came into my head, hopping freights, hitchhiking, and working as a railroad brakeman, deckhand and scullion on merchant ships, government fire lookout, and hundreds of assorted jobs.” On the Road was finally published in 1957 and brought him immediate fame. His other books were published in rapid succession and translated into eighteen languages. He is rightfully considered as the authentic voice of the “beat generation” in American literature. His other books include The Subterraneans, Visions of Neal, Doctor Sax, Lonesome Traveler, The Dharma Bums, Mexico City Blues, Visions of Gerard, Desolation Angels, and Satori in Paris. Pic is his last novel.
Jack Kerouac, Satori in Paris & Pic
(Series: # )
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