I've never told this story before and after you read it, you'll know why it's remained untold until now. I'm telling it now only because I've just finished reading Jack Kerouac's On The Road, considered by many to be the best of American travel writing, and a book that made Kerouac an icon of the Beat Generation."Someday I will find the right words and they will be simple.""The only truth is music."
~~ Jack Kerouac
In his book, Kerouac writes, "I have lots of things to teach you now... concerning the message that was transmitted to me under a pine tree in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night. It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don't worry. It's all like a dream."
I finished the book in my bedroom in North Carolina on a cold winter moonlit night near the window that looks out on a pine tree. Close enough to Kerouac's description to cause me to meditate on the words, "It's all like a dream."
You see, my own life seems very much dream-like. Kerouac described the feeling with these words: "The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great, that I thought I was in a dream."
That's much the way I often feel and it makes me wonder if all the things I think I remember could have actually happened. Perhaps they are only a dream. According to Jack, nothing ever happened, so no need to even ask the question according to him.
As I mused on this subject, there on that cold winter moonlit night, I remembered an event from my childhood. That in itself isn't remarkable; I often remember childhood landmarks or dreams. This one involved my old childhood pal who featured so strongly in the post titled, "Beans Up the Nose." If you haven't read it then you'll want to do just that but only after finishing this one, please.
That pal and I as I'm sure you remember had sworn an oath of loyalty, just as the knights of the Round Table, to a life-long search for the Holy Grail, or specifically, to following our own path and none other, just as the knights in their search for the grail. It was the same for Kerouac in On the Road.
Kerouac is recognized for his style of spontaneous prose, or so I'm told. And this best bud of mine and I were recognized if we were recognized at all, for our spontaneous compulsion to explore strange new worlds and to boldly go where we'd not gone before and to do so by forging new paths.
Forgive my mixing thematic elements; I've jumped from Camelot to Star Trek. It's another of the traits, or faults, to be compared with Kerouac. I want to stop, really I do, but it's a struggle and I'm sure Jack struggled with too. If you have any suggestions that might help, please leave them in the comments below.
Our spontaneous compulsion mentioned above was the reason for our being out on a quiet winter morning when snow covered the ground gently and was not deep, and the prolonged cold spell had frozen the surface of the lake near Armstrong Bridge. We were suited up in woolen armor and were seeking what opportunities might be in store for a couple of adventurous boys.
What fun it was to walk out onto the ice, far from shore, and see that familiar lakeside from a different vantage point. At just the right distance from shore, where the ice was just the right thickness, our body weight was just the right amount to cause a curvature in the surface of the ice--much like gravity causing the space-time continuum to bend--yeah like that.
At the point where all those just-rights converged, there was a loud report, and I don't mean a report as in a book review; I mean a big bang like a gunshot. We immediately stopped and stared at each other with a look that was not complete terror but with an expression that shouted a silent, "Mama!"
It's amazing how quickly the emotions change when the saber-toothed doesn't immediately leap out and eat you. In a second after that first report, we were no longer afraid but ecstatic. We were giddy with excitement as we stomped the ice harder and harder to hear the reverb of the crack, bang, boom echoing through the hills.
The loud noises, which is dope to teenaged boys, were quickly accompanied by spider-webs of shallow cracks that radiated from our spot on the ice toward the shoreline. What fun! Stomp! Stomp! Whoa!
Immediately following that last stomp, which my buddy made by leaping as high as his bundled body would allow, and coming down with both feet, there came a great surprise. The saber-toothed unexpectedly appeared and leaped. Metaphorically, of course! Not an actual tiger, you understand, but something just as frightening.
In short, my old pal disappeared beneath the surface, leaving a gaping hole and only his bogan (a type of hat commonly worn back in the day) floating on the surface to mark where he'd been moments before. Seconds later, he appeared flailing around and blaming me for the unfortunate event.
By the way, if all that was just a dream, then it must have been a lucid one because I remember that bogan floating on the water like it was yesterday. Despite the predicament, I must admit that I didn't half laugh!
Now it was a serious situation, as I'm sure you agree. My friend would not have gotten out of that hole in the ice if he'd been alone. But he wasn't alone was he? I was Gallahad to his Gawain and he soon enough stood shivering on the surface of the ice. Did I mention that his Great Aunt lived about 100 yards from the lake? We ran all the way and he found salvation wrapped in a blanket in front of the fireplace in his aunt's living room. She promised not to tell his mother, which was another bit of cake for everyone concerned.
I wasn't aware at the time, that Kerouac had provided a neat summary for the day when he said, "There's nothing to be afraid of and nothing to be glad about.... Because in the end, you won't remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn." And then he delivered the punchline, "So climb that goddamn mountain!"
With the current subject, we might say, Walk that frozen lake!
Even though I'd not yet read On the Road at the time my friend was drying the tissues in front of the fireplace and his great aunt had agreed not to tell his mom, I still had a vague awareness that I should have followed his lead. That's right! Consider that if I too had walked the lake and fallen below the surface, I would have found salvation in front of that same fire and my mother would never have known of the affair. Just think what a story that would be!
What, you're probably asking, would the end be with none around to pull us both out of the freezing water. I don't know the answer. None of us do really but Jack reminded us that, "It all ends in tears anyway."
When at last I put the book down, after reading the last paragraph on the last page, the first of his words to come floating up from the darkness of my mind were, "My whole wretched life swam before my weary eyes, and I realized no matter what you do it's bound to be a waste of time in the end and you might as well go mad."
I don't know why those words intrigued me so. Not because they're uplifting, right? No, not inspiring but surely something to think about. Something to consider. You see, in my case, I've already gone mad so there's no reason not to climb that goddamn mountain. Follow me closely here because I've jumped the rails again. I'm not talking about frozen lakes but about my Evil Plan to Dominate the World.
And right about now, you're probably saying to yourself that this entire post was merely my way of announcing that I'm back to work on the Evil Plan. And you're right. And why not? What's to lose? I'm going to let you answer that because I have work to do elsewhere and time's a'wasting. So in closing, I'll list a few more of the Kerouac quotes that seemed to speak to me in a personal way. That way you can piece it all together for yourself. Or not.
"There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars."
"Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road."
"Happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream."