must, we really must! Now Camille - . And he swirled on her. .Sal is here, this is my old buddy
from New Yor-r-k, this is his first night in Denver and it’s absolutely necessary for me to take him
out and fix him up with a girl..
.But what time will you be back?.
.It is now. (looking at his watch) .exactly one-fourteen. I shall be back at exactly three-
fourteen, for our hour of reverie together, real sweet reverie, darling, and then, as you know, as I
told you and as we agreed, I have to go and see the one-legged lawyer about those papers - in the
middle of the night, strange as it seems and as I tho-ro-ly explained.. (This was a coverup for his
rendezvous with Carlo, who was still hiding.) .So now in this exact minute I must dress, put on my
pants, go back to life, that is to outside life, streets and what not, as we agreed, it is now one-fifteen
and time’s running, running - .
.Well, all right, Dean, but please be sure and be back at three..
.Just as I said, darling, and remember not three but three-fourteen. Are we straight in the deepest
and most wonderful depths of our souls, dear darling?. And he went over and kissed her several
times. On the wall was a nude drawing of Dean, enormous dangle and all, done by Camille. I was
29
amazed. Everything was so crazy.
Off we rushed into the night; Carlo joined us in an alley. And we proceeded down the narrowest,
strangest, and most crooked little city street I’ve ever seen, deep in the heart of Denver Mexican-
town. We talked in loud voices in the sleeping stillness. .Sal,. said Dean, .I have just the girl waiting
for you at this very minute - if she’s off duty. (looking at his watch). .A waitress, Rita Bettencourt,
fine chick, slightly hung-up on a few sexual difficulties which I’ve tried to straighten up and I think
you can manage, you fine gone daddy you. So we’ll go there at once - we must bring beer, no, they
have some themselves, and damn!. he said socking his palm. .I’ve just got to get into her sister
Mary tonight..
.What?. said Carlo. .I thought we were going to talk..
.Yes, yes, after..
.Oh, these Denver doldrums!. yelled Carlo to the sky.
.Isn’t he the finest sweetest fellow in the world?. said Dean, punching me in the ribs. .Look at
him. Look at him!.
And Carlo began his monkey dance in the streets of life as I’d seen him do so many times
everywhere in 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
bottomry 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.
30
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, .I like boys who like to work..
.You’ve got your man,. said Eddie, but I wasn’t so sure about myself. .I just won’t sleep,. I
decided. There were so many other interesting things to do.
Eddie showed up the next morning; I didn’t. I had a bed, and Major bought food for the icebox,
and in exchange for that I cooked and washed the dishes. Meantime I got all involved in everything.
A big party took place at the Rawlinses’ one night. The Rawlins mother was gone on a trip. Ray
Rawlins called everybody he knew and told them to bring whisky; then he went through his address
book for girls. He made me do most of the talking. A whole bunch of girls showed up. I phoned
Carlo to find out what Dean was doing now. Dean was coming to Carlo’s at three in the morning. I
went there after the party.
Carlo’s basement apartment was on Grant Street in an old red-brick rooming house near a
church. You went down an alley, down some stone steps, opened an old raw door, and went
through a kind of cellar till you came to his board door. It was like the room of a Russian saint: one
bed, a candle burning, stone walls that oozed moisture, and a crazy makeshift ikon of some kind that
he had made. He read me his poetry. It was called .Denver Doldrums.. Carlo woke up in the
morning and heard the .vulgar pigeons. yakking in the street outside his cell; he saw the .sad
nightingales. nodding on the branches and they reminded him of his mother. A gray shroud fell over
the city. The mountains, the magnificent Rockies that you can see to the west from any part of town,
were .papier-maché.. The whole universe was crazy and cockeyed and extremely strange. He
wrote of Dean as a .child of the rainbow. who bore his torment in his agonized priapus. He referred
to him as .Oedipus Eddie. who had to .scrape bubble gum off windowpanes.. He brooded in his
basement over a huge journal in which he was keeping track of everything that happened every day everything
Dean did and said.
Dean came on schedule. .Everything’s straight,. he announced. .I’m going to divorce Marylou
and marry Camille and go live with her in San Francisco. But this is only after you and I, dear Carlo,
go to Texas, dig Old Bull Lee, that gone cat I’ve never met and both of you’ve told me so much
31
about, and then I’ll go to San Fran..
Then they got down to business. They sat on the bed crosslegged and looked straight at each
other. I slouched in a nearby chair and saw all of it. They began with an abstract thought, discussed
it; reminded each other of another abstract point forgotten in the rush of events; Dean apologized but
promised he could get back to it and manage it fine, bringing up illustrations.
Carlo said, .And just as we were crossing Wazee I wanted to tell you about how I felt of your
frenzy with the midgets and it was just then, remember, you pointed out that old bum with the baggy
pants and said he looked just like your father?.
.Yes, yes, of course I remember; and not only that, but it started a train of my own, something
real wild that I had to tell you, I’d forgotten it, now you just reminded me of it . . .. and two new
points were born. They hashed these over. Then Carlo asked Dean if he was honest and specifically
if he was being honest with him in the bottom of his soul.
.Why do you bring that up again?.
.There’s one last thing I want to know - .
.But, dear Sal, you’re listening, you’re sitting there, we’ll ask Sal. What would he say?.
And I said, .That last thing is what you can’t get, Carlo. Nobody can get to that last thing. We
keep on living in hopes of catching it once for all..
.No, no, no, you’re talking absolute bullshit and Wolfean romantic posh!. said Carlo.
And Dean said, .I didn’t mean that at all, but we’ll let Sal have his own mind, and in fact, don’t
you think, Carlo, there’s a kind of a dignity in the way he’s sitting there and digging us, crazy cat
came all the way across the country - old Sal won’t tell, old Sal won’t tell..
.It isn’t that I won’t tell,. I protested. .I just don’t know what you’re both driving at or trying to
get at. I know it’s too much for anybody..
.Everything you say is negative..
.Then what is it you’re trying to do?.
.Tell him..
.No, you tell him..
.There’s nothing to tell,. I said and laughed. I had on Carlo’s hat. I pulled it down over my eyes.
.I want to sleep,. I said.
.Poor Sal always wants to sleep.. I kept quiet. They started in again. .When you borrowed that
nickel to make up the check for the chicken-fried steaks - .
.No, man, the chili! Remember, the Texas Star?.
.I was mixing it with Tuesday. When you borrowed that nickel you said, now listen, you said;
Carlo, this is the last time I’ll impose on you,’ as if, and really, you meant that I had agreed with you
about no more imposing..
.No, no, no, I didn’t mean that - you harken back now if you will, my dear fellow, to the night
Marylou was crying in the room, and when, turning to you and indicating by my extra added sincerity
of tone which we both knew was contrived but had its intention, that is, by my play-acting I showed
that -But wait, that isn’t it..
.Of course that isn’t it! Because you forget that -But I’ll stop accusing you. Yes is what I said . .
.. And on, on into the night they talked like this. At dawn I looked up. They were tying up the last of
the morning’s matters. .When I said to you that I had to sleep because of Marylou, that is, seeing
her this morning at ten, I didn’t bring my peremptory tone to bear in regard to what you’d just said
about the unnecessariness of sleep but only, only, mind you, because of the fact that I absolutely,
simply, purely and without any whatevers have to sleep now, I mean, man, my eyes are closing,
they’re redhot, sore, tired, beat . . ..
32
.Ah, child,. said Carlo.
.We’ll just have to sleep now. Let’s stop the machine..
.You can’t stop the machine!. yelled Carlo at the top of his voice. The first birds sang.
.Now, when I raise my hand,. said Dean, .we’ll stop talking, we’ll both understand purely and
without any hassle that we are simply stopping talking, and we’ll just sleep..
.You can’t stop the machine like that..
.Stop the machine,. I said. They looked at me.
.He’s been awake all this time, listening. What were you thinking, Sal?. I told them that I was
thinking they were very amazing maniacs and that I had spent the whole night listening to them like a
man watching the mechanism of a watch that reached clear to the top of Berthoud Pass and yet was
made with the smallest works of the most delicate watch in the world. They smiled. I pointed my
finger at them and said, .If you keep this up you’ll both go crazy, but let me know what happens as
you go along..
I walked out and took a trolley to my apartment, and Carlo Marx’s papier-maché mountains
grew red as the great sun rose from the eastward plains.
33
9
In the evening I was involved in that trek to the mountains and didn’t see Dean or Carlo for five
days. Babe Rawlins had the use of her employer’s car for the weekend. We brought suits and hung
them on the car windows and took off for Central City, Ray Rawlins driving, Tim Gray lounging in
the back, and Babe up front. It was my first view of the interior of the Rockies. Central City is an old
mining town that was once called the Richest Square Mile in the World, where a veritable shelf of
silver had been found by the old buzzards who roamed the hills. They grew wealthy overnight and
had a beautiful little opera house built in the midst of their shacks on the steep slope. Lillian Russell
had come there, and opera stars from Europe. Then Central City became a ghost town, till the
energetic Chamber of Commerce types of the new West decided to revive the place. They polished
up the opera house, and every summer stars from the Metropolitan came out and performed. It was
a big vacation for everybody. Tourists came from everywhere, even Hollywood stars. We drove up
the mountain and found the narrow streets chock full of chichi tourists. I thought of Major’s Sam,
and Major was right. Major himself was there, turning on his big social smile to everybody and oohing
and aah-ing most sincerely over everything. .Sal,. he cried, clutching my arm, .just look at this
old town. Think how it was a hundred -what the hell, only eighty, sixty years ago; they had opera!.
.Yeah,. I said, imitating one of his characters, .but they’re here..
.The bastards,. he cursed. But he went off to enjoy himself, Betty Gray on his arm.
Babe Rawlins was an enterprising blonde. She knew of an old miner’s house at the edge of town
where we boys could sleep for the weekend; all we had to do was clean it out. We could also throw
vast parties there. It was an old shack of a thing covered with an inch of dust inside; it had a porch
and a well in back. Tim Gray and Ray Rawlins rolled up their sleeves and started in cleaning it, a
major job that took them all afternoon and part of the night. But they had a bucket of beer bottles
and everything was fine.
As for me, I was scheduled to be a guest at the opera that afternoon, escorting Babe on my arm.
I wore a suit of Tim’s. Only a few days ago I’d come into Denver like a bum; now I was all racked
up sharp in a suit, with a beautiful well-dressed blonde on my arm, bowing to dignitaries and chatting
in the lobby under chandeliers. I wondered what Mississippi Gene would say if he could see me.
The opera was Fidelio. .What gloom!. cried the baritone, rising out of the dungeon under a
groaning stone. I cried for it. That’s how I see life too. I was so interested in the opera that for a
while I forgot the circumstances of my crazy life and got lost in the great mournful sounds of
Beethoven and the rich Rembrandt tones of his story.
.Well, Sal, how did you like the production for this year?. asked Denver D. Doll proudly in the
street outside. He was connected with the opera association.
.What gloom, what gloom,. I said. .It’s absolutely great..
.The next thing you’ll have to do is meet the members of the cast,. he went on in his official
tones, but luckily he forgot this in the rush of other things, and vanished.
Babe and I went back to the miner’s shack. I took off my duds and joined the boys in the
cleaning. It was an enormous job. Roland Major sat in the middle of the front room that had already
been cleaned and refused to help. On a little table in front of him he had his bottle of beer and his
glass. As we rushed around with buckets of water and brooms he reminisced. .Ah, if you could just
come with me sometime and drink Cinzano and hear the musicians of Bandol, then you’d be living.
Then there’s Normandy in the summers, the sabots, the fine old Calvados. Come on, Sam,. he said
to his invisible pal. .Take the wine out of the water and let’s see if it got cold enough while we
34
fished.. Straight out of Hemingway, it was.
We called out to girls who went by in the street. .Come on help us clean up the joint.
Everybody’s invited to our party tonight.. They joined us. We had a huge crew working for us.
Finally the singers in the opera chorus, mostly young kids, came over and pitched in. The sun went
down.
Our day’s work over, Tim, Rawlins, and I decided to sharp up for the big night. We went across
town to the rooming house where the opera stars were living. Across the night we heard the
beginning of the evening performance. .Just right,. said Rawlins. .Latch on to some of these razors
and towels and we’ll spruce up a bit.. We also took hairbrushes, colognes, shaving lotions, and went
laden into the bathroom. We all took baths and sang. .Isn’t this great?. Tim Gray kept saying.
.Using the opera stars’ bathroom and towels and shaving lotion and electric razors..
It was a wonderful night. Central City is two miles high; at first you get drunk on the altitude, then
you get tired, and there’s a fever in your soul. We approached the lights around the opera house
down the narrow dark street; then we took a sharp right and hit some old saloons with swinging
doors. Most of the tourists were in the opera. We started off with a few extra-size beers. There was
a player piano. Beyond the back door was a view of mountainsides in the moonlight. I let out a
yahoo. The night was on.
We hurried back to our miner’s shack. Everything was in preparation for the big party. The girls,
Babe and Betty, cooked up a snack of beans and franks, and then we danced and started on the
beer for fair. The opera over, great crowds of young girls came piling into our place. Rawlins and
Tim and I licked our lips. We grabbed them and danced. There was no music, just dancing. The
place filled up. People began to bring bottles. We rushed out to hit the bars and rushed back.
The night was getting more and more frantic. I wished Dean and Carlo were there - then I
realized they’d be out of place and unhappy. They were like the man with the dungeon stone and the
gloom, rising from the underground, the sordid hipsters of America, a new beat generation that I was
slowly joining.
The boys from the chorus showed up. They began singing .Sweet Adeline.. They also sang
phrases such as .Pass me the beer. and .What are you doing with your face hanging out?. and
great long baritone howls of .Fi-de-lio!. .Ah me, what gloom!. I sang. The girls were terrific. They
went out in the backyard and necked with us. There were beds in the other rooms, the uncleaned
dusty ones, and I had a girl sitting on one and was talking with her when suddenly there was a great
inrush of young ushers from the opera, who just grabbed girls and kissed them without proper comeons.
Teenagers, drunk, disheveled, excited - they ruined our party. Inside of five minutes every single
girl was gone and a great big fraternity-type party got under way with banging of beer bottles and
roars.
Ray and Tim and I decided to hit the bars. Major was gone, Babe and Betty were gone. We
tottered into the night. The opera crowd was jamming the bars from bar to wall. Major was shouting
above heads. The eager, bespectacled Denver D. Doll was shaking hands with everybody and
saying, .Good afternoon, how are you?. and when midnight came he was saying, .Good afternoon,
how are you?. At one point I saw him going off somewhere with a dignitary. Then he came back
with a middle-aged woman; next minute he was talking to a couple of young ushers in the street. The
next minute he was shaking my hand without recognizing me and saying, .Happy New Year,
m’boy.. He wasn’t drunk on liquor, just drunk on what he liked - crowds of people milling.
Everybody knew him. .Happy New Year,. he called, and sometimes .Merry Christmas.. He said
this all the time. At Christmas he said Happy Halloween.
There was a tenor in the bar who was highly respected by everyone; Denver Doll had insisted
35
that I meet him and I was trying to avoid it; his name was D’Annunzio or some such thing. His wife
was with him. They sat sourly at a table. There was also some kind of Argentinian tourist at the bar.
Rawlins gave him a shove to make room; he turned and snarled. Rawlins handed me his glass and
knocked him down on the brass rail with one punch. The man was momentarily out. There were
screams; Tim and I scooted Rawlins out. There was so much confusion the sheriff couldn’t even
thread his way through the crowd to find the victim. Nobody could identify Rawlins. We went to
other bars. Major staggered up a dark street. .What the hell’s the matter? Any fights? Just call on
me.. Great laughter rang from all sides. I wondered what the Spirit of the Mountain was thinking,
and looked up and saw jackpines in the moon, and saw ghosts of old miners, and wondered about
it. In the whole eastern dark wall of the Divide this night there was silence and the whisper of the
wind, except in the ravine where we roared; and on the other side of the Divide was the great
Western Slope, and the big plateau that went to Steamboat Springs, and dropped, and led you to
the western Colorado desert and the Utah desert; all in darkness now as we fumed and screamed in
our mountain nook, mad drunken Americans in the mighty land. We were on the roof of America
and all we could do was yell, I guess - across the night, eastward over the Plains, where somewhere
an old man with white hair was probably walking toward us with the Word, and would arrive any
minute and make us silent.
Rawlins insisted on going back to the bar where he’d fought. Tim and I didn’t like it but stuck to
him. He went up to D’Annunzio, the tenor, and threw a highball in his face. We dragged him out. A
baritone singer from the chorus joined us and we went to a regular Central City bar. Here Ray called
the waitress a whore. A group of sullen men were ranged along the bar; they hated tourists. One of
them said, .You boys better be out of here by the count of ten.. We were. We staggered back to
the shack and went to sleep.
In the morning I woke up and turned over; a big cloud of dust rose from the mattress. I yanked at
the window; it was nailed. Tim Gray was in the bed too. We coughed and sneezed. Our breakfast
consisted of stale beer. Babe came back from her hotel and we got our things together to leave.
Everything seemed to be collapsing. As we were going out to the car Babe slipped and fell flat on
her face. Poor girl was overwrought. Her brother and Tim and I helped her up. We got in the car;
Major and Betty joined us. The sad ride back to Denver began.
Suddenly we came down from the mountain and overlooked the great sea-plain of Denver; heat
rose as from an oven. We began to sing songs. I was itching to get on to San Francisco.
36
10
That night I found Carlo and to my amazement he told me he’d been in Central City with Dean.
.What did you do?.
.Oh, we ran around the bars and then Dean stole a car and we drove back down the mountain
