Tristessa

Read Tristessa for Free Online

Book: Read Tristessa for Free Online
Authors: Jack Kerouac
Tags: Classics
and one through the whoreboy bar of queers where spidery heroes perform whore dances in turtleneck sweaters for assembled critical elders of 22—look through both holes and see the eye of the criminal, criminal in heaven.—I plow through digging the scene, swinging my bag with the bottle in it, I twist and give the whores a few twisting looks as I walks, they send me stereotyped soundwaves of scorn from cussin doorways—I am starving, I start eating El Indio’s sandwich he gave me which at first I’d sought to refuse so as to leave it for the cat but El Indio insisted it was a present for me, so I nakedly breast-high in one delicate hold as I walk along the street—seeing the sandwich I begin to eat it—finishing it, I start buying tacos as I run by, any kind, any stand where they yell “Joven!”—I buy stinking livers of sausages chopped in black white onions steaming hot in grease that crackles on the inverted fender of the grille—I munch down on heats and hotsauce salsas and come to devouring whole mouthloads of fire and rush along—nevertheless I buy another one, further, two, of broken cow-meat hacked on the woodblock, head and all it seems, bits of grit and gristle, all mungied together on a mangy tortilla and chewed down with salt, onions, and green leaf—diced—a delicious sandwich when you get a good stand—The stands are 1,2,3 in a row a half mile down the street, tragically lit by candles and dim bulbs and strange lanterns, the whole of Mexico a Bohemian Adventure in the great outdoor plateau night of stones, candle and mist—I pass Plaza Garibaldi the hot spot of the police, strange crowds are grouping in narrow streets around quiet musicians that only later faintly you hear corneting round the block—Marimbas are drumming in the big bars—Rich men, poor men, in wide hats mingle—Come out of swinging doors spitting cigar putts and clapping big hands over their jock as though they were about to dive in a cold brook—guilty—Up the side streets dead buses waddling in the mud holes, spots of fiery yellow whoredress in the dark, assembled leaners and up against the wall lovers of the loving Mexican night—Pretty girls passing, every age, all the comic Gordos and me turn big heads to watch them, they’re too beautiful to bear—
    I rock right by the Post Office, cross the bottom of Juarez, the Palace of Fine Arts sinking nearby,—yoke myself to San Juan Letran and fall to hiking up fifteen blocks of it fast passing delicious places where they make the churros and cut you hot salt sugar butter bites of fresh hot donut from the grease basket, that you crunch freshly as you cover the Peruvian night ahead of your enemies on the sidewalk—All kinds of crazy gangs are assembled, chief gleeful leaders getting high on gang leadership wear crazy woollen Scandanavian Ski hats over their zoot paraphenalias and Pachuco haircuts—Other day here I’d passed a gang of children in a gutter their leader dressed as a clown (with nylon stocking over head) and wide rings painted around the eyes, the littler kids have imitated him and attempted similar clown outfits, the whole thing gray and blackened eyes with white loops, like silks of great racetracks the little gang of Pinocchioan heroes (and Genet) paraphernaliaing on the street curb, an older boy making fun of the Clown Hero “What are you doing clowning, Clown Hero?—There ain’t no Heaven anywhere?” “There ain’t no Santa Claus of Clown Heroes, mad boy”—Other gangs of semi-hipsters hide in front of nightclub bars with wronks and noise inside, I fly by with one quick Walt Whitman look at all that file deroll—It starts raining harder, I’ve got a long way to go walking and pushing that sore leg right along in the gathering rain, no chance no intention whatever of hailing a cab, the whiskey and the Morphine have made me unruffled

Similar Books

Blind

Francine Pascal

Quick, Amanda

Wait Until Midnight

Immortal Sea

Virginia Kantra

Partners by Contract

Kim Lawrence

Forever Man

Brian Matthews

Tell Me No Lies

Rachel Branton

Johnny Angel

Saranna DeWylde