and my father holds up my empty glass to the light and gives me an approving look. “Shall we order you another?,” he asks, which causes my mother to get that face she gets right before she’s about to become apoplectic, when I’m saved by a quiet commotion that ripples through the bar. Heads turn, bow together in whispers and secretive glances, cast toward Gunther’s front door.
“What’s going on?” my father asks.
My mother leans across the table toward him. “Kerouac,” she stage whispers, indicating less unobtrusively than she thinks in the direction of a handsome man who strides in our direction, stopping at a table not far from ours, to chat with some people he obviously knows. My eyes catch his, and I look away. My mother leans conspiratorially closer and says, “Check his feet. I hear he wanders around town barefoot, without any shoes.”
“That’s what barefoot is, and he has shoes on, Ma,” I say, tapping my empty glass that Dad has returned to the table, to let him know I’m waiting on another. “For God’s sake, let him be. He doesn’t need strangers gawking at him.”
Except I am having a hard time not staring myself. He’s rather good-looking in person. Dark hair, chiseled cheekbones, if a sort of sad, hollow look in his eyes. There’s no doubt it’s him. Anyone who lives within a ten-mile radius knows he moved in with his mother a few years ago. To escape from the commercial success of On the Road.
I had friends who’d seen him moseying around town, but they don’t care like I do. They’re not well read. But I’ve read practically everything he’s written. Not just On the Road three times, but The Subterraneans, and I’m right in the middle of Dharma Bums.
“My word, he’s handsome,” my mother says, leaning in again. “Don’t you think?”
I do, but I can’t bear her fawning, so I ignore her, which isn’t exactly fair. She’s closer to his age than I am. But only one of us is married. Either way, I’m grateful when the waitress returns with my second drink. I suck on the whiskey-soaked cherries before sipping it quickly down.
I’m sure it’s the alcohol that emboldens me. When Kerouac heads to the cigarette machine, I excuse myself from our table, and head in the direction of the ladies room. As I reach him, I stumble. Years later, when I dare tell the story, I’ll say “purposely,” but likely I catch my heel in the uneven slats of the wood floor. And coupled with the whiskey, well, I stumble right where he stands, and he—Jack Kerouac—catches me, graciously, by the arm.
“You okay, miss?” he asks, and I have to fight to stop myself from swooning.
“Yes. Thanks.” Though I’ve steadied myself, his fingers remain linked around my forearm. His intense brown eyes search mine. Does he think he knows me? Is it some sort of request? Invitation?
“I must have caught my heel on something,” I say, giggling. “It’s my eighteenth birthday. I’ve had a drink or two. Legally.” I smile on the word “legally,” though I’m not sure why. The room spins a little, leaving me glad he still has a hold on me. I glance back toward our table, wondering if my parents are watching, my father ready to spring up to protect me, but the hall curves slightly, leaving us out of view.
“I’m Jack,” he says. “And I’m legal, too.” His eyes take me in, sending my heart spiraling into the pit of my stomach.
“Ruth,” I respond. “And I know who you are. I’m a reader. A fan. Dharma Bums is my absolute favorite so far. I’m reading it right now. Well, not right now.” I giggle foolishly again. “At home, is what I mean…”
“Well, then,” he says, and the next thing I know, or at least remember, we’ve gone out the back door, and I’m pressed up against the building, and Kerouac’s lips are on mine, and Bobby Masters is nothing more than a dim memory, some childish fancy, I’ll barely remember in twenty years.
LATE MAY
TENTH GRADE
“A shithole. I told you.”
Max stops the bike at the end of the long gravel driveway surrounded by overgrown yellow-brown grass, and motions at a small house, green paint badly peeling, and two of its four front windows covered in plywood. “You sure you want to do this?” Next to the garage, an old maroon Ford Taurus sits, both its taillights knocked out.
I’m suddenly not sure. Now I get why it’s taken him so