New York.

And all I could say was, “Well, what the hell are we doing in Denver?”

“Tomorrow, Sal, I know where I can find you a job,” said Dean, reverting to businesslike tones. “So I’ll call on you, soon as I have an hour off from Marylou, and cut right into that apartment of yours, say hello to Major, and take you on a trolley (damn, I’ve no car) to the Camargo markets, where you can begin working at once and collect a paycheck come Friday. We’re really all of us bottomly broke. I haven’t had time to work in weeks. Friday night beyond all doubt the three of us—the old threesome of Carlo, Dean, and Sal—must go to the midget auto races, and for that I can get us a ride from a guy downtown I know....” And on and on into the night.

We got to the house where the waitress sisters lived. The one for me was still working; the sister that Dean wanted was in. We sat down on her couch. I was scheduled at this time to call Ray Rawlins. I did. He came over at once. Coming into the door, he took off his shirt and undershirt and began hugging the absolute stranger, Mary Bettencourt. Bottles rolled on the floor. Three o‘clock came. Dean rushed off for his hour of reverie with Camille. He was back on time. The other sister showed up. We all needed a car now, and we were making too much noise. Ray Rawlins called up a buddy with a car. He came. We all piled in; Carlo was trying to conduct his scheduled talk with Dean in the back seat, but there was too much confusion. “Let’s all go to my apartment!” I shouted. We did; the moment the car stopped there I jumped out and stood on my head in the grass. All my keys fell out; I never found them. We ran, shouting, into the building. Roland Major stood barring our way in his silk dressing gown.

“I’ll have no goings-on like this in Tim Gray’s apartment!”

“What?” we all shouted. There was confusion. Rawlins was rolling in the grass with one of the waitresses. Major wouldn’t let us in. We swore to call Tim Gray and confirm the party and also invite him. Instead we all rushed back to the Denver downtown hangouts. I suddenly found myself alone in the street with no money. My last dollar was gone.

I walked five miles up Colfax to my comfortable bed in the apartment. Major had to let me in. I wondered if Dean and Carlo were having their heart-to-heart. I would find out later. The nights in Denver are cool, and I slept like a log.

8

Then everybody began planning a tremendous trek to the mountains. This started in the morning, together with a phone call that complicated matters—my old road friend Eddie, who took a blind chance and called; he remembered some of the names I had mentioned. Now I had the opportunity to get my shirt back. Eddie was with his girl in a house off Colfax. He wanted to know if I knew where to find work, and I told him to come over, figuring Dean would know. Dean arrived, hurrying, while Major and I were having a hasty breakfast. Dean wouldn’t even sit down. “I have a thousand things to do, in fact hardly any time to take you down Camargo, but let’s go, man.”

“Wait for my road buddy Eddie.”

Major found our hurrying troubles amusing. He’d come to Denver to write leisurely. He treated Dean with extreme deference. Dean paid no attention. Major talked to Dean like this; “Moriarty, what’s this I hear about you sleeping with three girls at the same time?” And Dean shuffled on the rug and said, “Oh yes, oh yes, that’s the way it goes,” and looked at his watch, and Major snuffed down his nose. I felt sheepish rushing off with Dean—Major insisted he was a moron and a fool. Of course he wasn‘t, and I wanted to prove it to everybody somehow.

We met Eddie. Dean paid no attention to him either, and off we went in a trolley across the hot Denver noon to find the jobs. I hated the thought of it. Eddie talked and talked the way he always did. We found a man in the markets who agreed to hire both of us; work started at four o‘clock in the morning and went till six P.M. The man said,