Sara buttoned her orange down coat over her long wiry curls while she waited on the platform near the train tracks. She thought it was nice she had everything she needed for two weeks in New York, packed neatly into an army issued rucksack; books, clothes, toiletries, reading glasses and a notebook to write in. The simple things she enjoyed. A small amount of sun came through the clouds before Sara got on the train headed to Penn Station, New York City. It would be a couple hours. Dead leaves gathered on a pond along the way.
Sara was seated next to a man in a ski jacket with a lift ticket still on the zipper. She didn’t notice him until he spoke, “Hi.” She smiled back, but never quite made contact with his face. Then she noticed his clean, cross training sneakers. Sara immediately pulled Kerouac’s Big Sur from her rucksack- the same one she took across the States twice, to Europe and of course Mexico City, her favorite. She put on her glasses.
The man in the ski jacket talked on his cell phone. “Yeah that was fun, but I have to get back into the city tonight. I was pretty drunk too. Yeah that sounds like a good idea. I’ll call you and, ah, maybe you can come into the city.” He scratched his knee repeatedly. There was no itch.
Sara caught that. And she was listening. She always listened to other people’s conversations. She lived vicariously through them.
“No, I really want to. I’m not just saying that. If I didn’t want to see you again, I’d say, I don’t want to see you again. That’s the kind of person I am.”
When she tried to catch a glimpse of his face he looked at her, so she quickly changed the direction of her glimpse out the window at the small houses with backyards and swing sets and covered pools.
“Okay, so, we’ll talk. Yes, I will call you. Okay, take care, so long, goodbye.”
She turned through the pages rather loudly and caught herself. She hadn’t meant to be so loud but in public places she sometimes did things too quickly. This was one of those times.
The man put his cell phone in his jacket. “I’ve never read anything by Jack Kerouac. Is it any good? That’s probably a stupid question.”
Sara finished the sentence she was reading. Strange sad desultory the way families and people sorta scatter around a beach and look vaguely at the sea, all disorganized and picnic sad. She put her finger on the word sad. “You should.” This time she noticed he was clean-shaven and his hair was gelled and spiky. Then she went back to reading- well, actually, pretending to read. She assumed he would speak again. Her eyes stayed on the word sad. The letters s-a-d became bold and then blurry before the man spoke again.
“Could you recommend one? I know he has a lot? I read a lot of Kyle Kelly mysteries. I always see a long line of Jack Kerouac on the shelves.”
Sara pretended she never heard of the best selling Kyle Kelly mystery books. She despised that sort of writing. She considered it dull and contrived. She’d actually told that to her cousin once when they got stuck talking to each other on Christmas a year ago.
“You know them both having names that start with K, they tend to be nearby on a shelf.”
Sara remained unsure of this Kyle Kelly person that wrote best selling mystery novels.
“You’ve never heard of Kyle Kelly?”
“Maybe I have.” She looked up for a moment, then right back down to that word sad. She liked saying it to herself over and over. The sound of the word in her head inspired an emotion. It felt like admitting a secret kept inside for too long.
“They made movies out of some of his books. Ben Affleck was in one. Mat Damon was in one.”
“I never saw them.”
“But you’ve heard of them.”
“I think so, maybe. I don't watch much TV.” She looked away. She didn’t want him to think she was interested.
S-a-d. S-a-d. Sad. Sad.
The man interrupted her thought. “Do you live in New York?”
“No. But I’m thinking about moving and I might move to New York. Or maybe to San Francisco.”
“I live in New York. I’ve lived in San Francisco too. Right after college. I was selling mutuals. I work for a job placement service now. A headhunter. I like New York better. The seasons, you know?”
Sara held up the book so the cover was facing the man and he could read the words Big Sur. “That’s where this book takes place mostly. It’s just north of San Fran.”
“I’ve heard of it.”
“I’ve been there. It’s beautiful.”
“So that’s what the book’s about?”
“Yeh, well it’s about Jack Kerouac’s experiences there, but it’s fictionalized so he uses different names for himself and everyone else, but it’s based on real people and what they did there. IT all really happened.”
“What happens? Are you almost done?”
“I’m half way through now, but I’ve read it before.”
“I’ve never read a book twice. The same one. I’ve seen the same movie more then once though. But it’s a good book?”
“Yeah. It’s a classic. He goes to San Francisco to visit old friends and they go to Big Sur to get away from the city. He drinks a lot with everyone, but a little more then everyone. Then he realizes that things aren’t the same as they used to be when he was young and all his friends were young. He imagines himself in love. He’s so lonely he has no one to talk to so he talks to a donkey.”
“Sounds sad.”
“A little. It’s real though. It’s the kind of fiction that’s real. At least it was real for Jack Kerouac. Though, he was so lonely he could’ve imagined it all.”
“I don’t really read books like Jack Kerouac books. I’ve read Catcher in the Rye. I like that. I remember reading that in High School.”
Sara didn’t even respond because she felt like J.D. Salinger sold out while doing his best not to sell out. She had the same copy of Catcher she had in high school. She always kept it with her. She truly loved it, but so did everyone else, so she never mentioned it in conversation. She felt Kerouac gave her more of an identity, unique from others who occupied there time with pop culture. Catcher in the Rye was part of everybody’s generation, plus others to come. Kerouac was something you found in your travels and identified with.
So she stopped talking again and fixed her eyes on the word sad. Page 129. She waited for him to talk again. He didn’t. She continued reading about a big wave coming from Hawaii. How Jack competed for girls with friends, but they always won the girl because he’d give up. She felt bad for Jack. She promised herself she’d never choose anyone over him. Just when Evelyn told Jack, You have so many friends and responsibilities now it’s sad, the man next her said something. She put her finger on the word sad. “Sadness is a recurring theme.” She liked that. “What?”
He turned and faced her. “Where’re you going in New York?”
She leaned against the window. “My friend lives in the East Village. I’m staying there while he’s gone for two weeks. It’s in the East Village.”
“Where?”
“Um, I forget exactly. I have it written down. Let me check.” She lifted the canvas bag from between her muddied up hiking boots and sat it on her thighs wrapped in faded denim. Her pale and boney hands opened a buckle and she pulled out another Jack Kerouac. Dharma Bums. “This is a good one too.”
“What’s that’s about?”
Sara flipped through the pages and studied little things she had written down in the margins. Words like love and alcohol and friend, when a paragraph reminded her of something she understood… or wanted to. Family. That’s so Mom. Gotta go there. She spoke while she did this. “It about Jack’s experiences while studying Buddhism. He was a mainly a Buddhist.” Page 189. “Here. 438 East 9th Street and Avenue A in the East Village.”
“The East Village. The artists. You’ll fit in there. I mean that in a good way. I live on 29th street and 3rd. I fit in there. I go out in the East Village sometimes. I like it.”
The man didn’t say anything anymore. He gazed out the window while Sara stared at the page before her- the page with the address on it. It also said Meet Someone. She listened to the stops along the way and people boarded and the train came closer to full. Greenwood. Stanton. Lakewood. Glen Township. She hoped no one would sit between her and the man in the ski jacket. Not because she liked sitting next to him but because she had already gotten herself comfortable and the man knew what she was about. She always explained herself to people. She felt like she had to if they asked. But no one really ever asked, she just acted like that whenever she met someone new.
A girl, maybe three, peaked her head over the seat at Sara. Her cheeks were rosy, with some food, maybe chocolate, above her lip. “Hi,” the little girl yelled.
Sara only smiled back.
The kid was practically hanging on the leather upholstery. “Hi.” Again.
Sara barely squeaked out “Hi” back with out making eye contact. She nervously brushed her hair with her fingers. Her curls were messy. She waited for the little girl’s mother to intervene. She figured it was only polite for a responsible parent to weaken the burden of a child on another. She never regarded children as anything but naïve and awkward.
Sara was cute in high school but no one ever talked to her because she never went to parties. She was too busy trying to figure out why Van Gogh cut his ear off, why Hemmingway blew his brains out, or why people liked reading nonsense when they could better spend their time on Kerouac. Then her eyes got bad when she was in college. She refused to get contacts. She started wearing granny glasses. Before anyone noticed her long soft curls, they’d see those big brown circles around her eyes. Her blue irises were magnified by the thick prescription she needed. Her nose poked out like a button between the big frames. She might as well have been wearing a mask.
Once she left the crowded echoes of Penn Station she found a cab to take her to her friends place. She liked the painters dabbing at their canvases on the corners. Folding tables covered with winter hats and wool socks. The cab waited at a red light. All sorts of people crossed the street even after the sign blinked Don’t Walk.
Her friend left her a note on the fridge telling her where to get a cup of coffee, a good place for a cheap meal. He also told her to spend time sitting in the park, near the birdbath. It’s a fabulous place for people watching. Reading it made her smile.
She sat in the park for a while but nothing seemed to happen, accept for the temperature dropping as the night came. And only a man pushing a shopping cart overflowed with empty cans noticed her.
She rolled a cigarette and sipped a coffee at the café on the corner- the kind of place where each table is different, big enough for two, sometimes three, and the chairs are weak. It sounded as though everyone was speaking a foreign language.
A blonde man with his legs crossed asked her for a smoke.
She looked at him with her glasses rested on the tip of her nose. “Excuse me,” she whispered.
“Your tobacco. Maybe I roll one.”
She pushed her pouch to the edge of her table. He leaned closer and took the pouch. He began rolling the cigarette on her table. She moved over a little, but not enough to make it obvious. More like she was adjusting her position.
He licked the cigarette sealed. “Do you live here?”
“No.”
“Oh, just visiting, how nice. A mate?”
“No, a friend.”
“I am as well, but I’m beginning to think I’ve over-welcomed my stay. Probably not too much longer. I tele’d a friend in Miami and she told me to come see her as soon as I could. I believe I’ll take her up on it. I don’t really enjoy the beach but what the hay. As long as she doesn’t get the wrong idea. I tend to think she fancies me.”
Sara didn’t have anything to say to the tall man.
He tossed the cigarette into his mouth so it stuck between his lips. “A light?”
She pushed the matches to him and went back to staring at the words she’d written in her notebook. He stroked the match and the flame fizzled out before he could light the cigarette. “Oh, that’s bad luck,” he said.
The devastation of love is what makes life so romantic. Self pity only exists in the palm of your hand, and only a feeble mind relies on another. She wrote those words before the man interrupted her. Now she forgot what she meant.
He finally got the cigarette lit. He raised his chin and blew the smoke into the air. “What are you writing?”
She turned the page to a blank sheet. “Nothing really.”
“Oh, of course. Just some words and things of that nature.” He sighed. “Are you a writer?”
“Sort of.”
“You either are or you aren’t.”
“I have to go.” She stood rather quickly. The man sat back to give her space.
“Well, it was nice meeting you. Thanks for the fag.” She felt the man’s eyes on her chest. Nothing much there. Just the outline of a bra under her favorite red t-shirt.
“You’re welcome,” she said as she buttoned the orange coat around her thin body.
She got confused on her way back to the apartment. She walked west on St. Marks instead of 9th. Boutiques and small, candle lit places to eat along the way. She liked the ambience. She thought about things to write about. The cold curb layered with cigarette buts. The trees, bare and scratching the sky. Dog’s tongue wagging and syliva dripping. Screaming bus brakes. Crying child. Snoring man. Broken glass. Brick.
The apartment smelled like dirty dishes. The toilet needed to be cleaned. A balled up comforter lay on the bed. She lit some of the rain water incense she brought from home. The scent snaked its way up until it disappeared.
She spread out the checkered comforter and got into bed with her notebook and pencil. It smelled like dirty hair. She turned to the last few pages left at the end and began writing with her elbows resting on the mattress, about a dog she had until 7th grade. His big eyes when he looked at her. The way he chased her down the block, big ears flopping and slapping his cheeks. The day she found him on her way home from school, dieing, bleeding all over the street. She carried him into the house and tried to wash the blood away in the tub. Her mother found her sobbing, holding his dead body, slipping into the red, tile floor. A tear landed on the page and spread like an ink stain. She wiped the rest away from her eyes and put her face in the pillow.
She woke up to use the bathroom. While she sat on the toilet she heard music coming through the wall. Sounded like jazz. Ever since she read Kerouac’s The Subterraneans she’d found a fondness for jazz. She listened with her head resting against the wall. The beat of an upright bass. The slow, soft touch on a snare drum. The busy tune of the clarinet. A doo, dat, dat.
She sat by the window at night, looked onto 9th and watched the cars honk at bicyclists. She blew her smoke out the window and felt how cold it was in the dark. She wrote on a clean sheet of paper in her notebook by a candle flickering in the shape of a dancer. His strong hands around my waste. I kiss his neck up to the back of his ear. I feel him breathe against my breasts and his arms make me feel safe. He promises me he’ll never hold another woman again. No more sadness. Only all the love of the world.
She woke up in the morning when she heard a door slam. Came from the apartment next door, where the jazz music came from.
She shaved her legs in the shower. Used her fingers to brush her hair. She noticed a pimple under her left eye. She didn’t think it would make a difference to Jack so it didn’t make a difference to her. Had her knit hat pulled down over her ears and her coat buttoned to the top. In the park she had difficulty turning the pages with her gloves on. She remembered the jazz she heard the night before and it was too cold to sit in the park.
On Broadway she found a Tower Records Store one block long. She walked against the direction of everyone else. She shied from their eyes as she maneuvered through the flow of people on the sidewalk. She kept her hands in her pockets when several guys tried to hand her flyers advertising comedy shows, clothing sales, sex shops.
Once inside Tower Records she asked a younger man with a pony tail and a tight fitted t-shirt with the name or word Dick across his chest, where the Jazz section was.
“Oh yeah, come here,” he said. She followed him through the Rock and Pop, Blues, Rap, and Country. The chain attached from his belt to his wallet bounced off his hip. “Are you looking for something specific?”
“No,” she answered.
He stopped in front of a wall in the loneliest part of the store. “Here you are.”
“Thanks.”
He picked out a Louis Armstrong CD; big, puffy cheeks and sweat running down his forehead on the picture. “This is great. Or are you looking for more of a Miles Davis thing?”
“I’m not really sure yet. Just want to look around.” She picked up something, didn’t know what. The first thing she’d seen. Tried to make it look like she knew what she was looking at.
He was scratching at his chest now, maybe trying to hide that crude word. “I like jazz. It’s a personal thing. You know, don’t need anybody when you have jazz. It’s like Blues was made by the poorest people. So Jazz was made by the loneliest people.”
She put the CD she was holding back on the shelf and picked up another one.
“Do you like Poncho Sanchez?”
That’s what she was holding though she didn’t know it. “Yeah, a little.”
“Then that’s totally different shit from Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis. Then you got shit like Tom Waits, Antoni Jobin. It’s all so different.”
“Thanks. I’m going to look around.”
“Okay, let me know if you need any suggestions.”
He walked off and she continued looking. She didn’t know the difference between the styles of Jazz. New Orleans. Cuban. Lounge. Funk. She wanted to find something by a Black artist because that’s what she imagined when she heard Jazz. She pictured those five guys in tailed tuxedo jackets, old shoes, big bowties and smoky voices.
While she was looking the guy came back to her with a CD in his hand. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Some things I think I like.”
“Okay, well, this is awesome shit. A Ken Burns Jazz Collection. He’s like a Jazz aficionado and he makes the collections. You probably heard of him. He knows his shit. Try this.”
She looked over the case, read the names of the songs on the back. Acted like most of them were familiar. “This does sound good. I’ll try it.”
“You’ll like it for sure.”
“Thanks.” She left the guy standing there.
(continued next post)
