Visions of Gerard by Jack Kerouac Read Free Book Online Page A

of the house where he had his press, and upstairs in an unused bedroom where he had some racks of type—He had rheumatism too, and lay in white sheets groaned and saying “ La marde !” and looking at his type racks in the next room where his helper Manuel was doing his best in an inkstained apron.
    It was later on, about the time Gerard got really sick (long-sick, year-sick, his last illness) that this paraphernalia was moved back to the rented shop on Merrimack Street in an alley in back of the Royal Theater, an alley which I visited just last year to find unchanged and the old gray-wood Colonial one storey building where Pa’s pure hope-shop rutted, a boarded up ghost-hovel not even fit for bums—And forlorner winds never did blow ragspaper around useless rubbish piles, than those that blow there tonight in that forgotten alley of the world which is no more forgotten than the heartbreaking and piteous way Gerard had of holding his head to the side whenever he was interested or bemused in something, and as if to say, “Ay-you, world, what are our images but dust?—and our shops,”—sad.
    Nonetheless, lots of porkchops and beans came to me via my old man’s efforts in the world of business which for all the fact that ‘t is only the world of adult playball, procures tightwad bread from hidden cellars the locks of which are guarded by usurping charlatans who know how easy it is to enslave people with a crust of bread withheld—He, Emil, went bustling and bursting in his neckties to find the money to pay rents, coalbills (for to vaunt off that selfsame winter night and I’d be ingrat to make light of it whenever trucks come early morning and dump their black and dusty coal roar down a chute of steel into our under bins)—Ashes in the bottom of the furnace, that Ma herself shoveled out and into pails, and struggled to the ashcan with, were ashes representative of Poppa’s efforts and tho their heating faculties were in Nirvana now ‘twould be loss of fealty to deny—I curse and rant nowaday because I dont want to have to work to make a living and do childish work for other men (any lout can move a board from hither to yonder) but’d rather sleep all day and stay it up all night scrubbling these visions of the world which is only an ethereal flower of a world, the coal, the chute, the fire and the ashes all, imaginary blossoms, nonetheless, “somebody’s got to do the work-a the world”—Artist or no artist, I cant pass up a piece of fried chicken when I see it, compassion or no compassion for the fowl—Arguments that raged later between my father and myself about my refusal to go to work—“I wanta write —I’m an artist ”—“Artist shmartist, ya cant be supported all ya life—”
    And I wonder what Gerard would have done had he lived, sickly, artistic—But by my good Jesus, with that holy face they’d have stumbled over one another to come and give him bread and breath—He left me his heart but not his tender countenance and sorrowful patience and kindly lights—
    â€œMe when I’m big, I’m gonna be a painter of beautiful pictures and I’m gonna build beautiful bridges”—He never lived to come and face the humble problem, but he would have done it with that noblesse tendresse I never in my bones and dead man heart could ever show.
    It’s a bright cold morning in December 1925, just before Christmas, Gerard is setting out to school—Aunt Marie has him by the hand, she’s visiting us for a week and she wants to take a morning constitutional, and take deep breaths and show Gerard how to do likewise, for his health—Aunt Marie is my father’s favorite sister (and my favorite aunt), a talkative openhearted, teary bleary lovely with red lipstick always and gushy kisses and a black ribbon pendant from her specs—While my father has been abed with