Thunder Sandwich
#17

Prose
Beat Road Benison
by t.k. splake
dweeb by jeff filipski
dweeb by jeff filipski

ROUTE 66

 

in l946, bobby troup created his musical trip-
tik "route sixty-six." his song was immediately a
popular hit with nat king cole providing the most
celebrated rendition. troup tells of the "mother
road" that winds over two-thousand highway miles
from chicago to los angeles. his ballad describing
the pathway of escape to better times passes through
st. louis, joplin, oklahoma city, amarillo, gallup,
flagstaff, kingman, barstow, and san bernadino.
there is a gentle musical reminder not to forget
winona, arizona.
 
" . . . the only people for me are the mad
ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk,
mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the
same time, the ones who never yawn or say a
commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like
fabulous roman candles, . . . " "i woke up as
the sun was reddening; and that was the one dis-
tinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all,
when i didn't know who i was -- i was far away from
home, haunted and tired with travel in a cheap
hotel room i'd never seen, and hearing the hiss of
steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the
hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad
sounds, and i looked at the cracked high ceiling
and really didn't know who i was for about fifteen
strange seconds, . . . " "i was halfway across
america, at the dividing line between east of my
youth and the west of my future, and maybe that's
why it happened right there and then, that strange
red afternoon." "i heard the sound of footsteps
from the darkness beyond, and lo, a tall man with
flowing white hair came clomping by with a pack on
his back, and when he saw me he passed, he said,
'go moan for man,' and clomped on back to his dark.
did this mean that i should at last go on my pil-
grimage on foot on the dark roads around american?"

jack kerouac
on the road
 
"there was a two-cent 'deposit' charged on
every small soda bottle, a nickel on sodas of
larger size, . . . ." "we would turn them in for
cash at the steinberg candy store right on my
street, . . . . " "for two cents you could buy a
nice-sized block of nestle's or hershey's choco-
late, a couple of pretzels or frozen twists, or
in the fall, a good piece of halvah we all went
crazy about for a while." "for a nickel you could
get a milky way or coca-cola, a melorol or eskimo
pie, a hot dog in rosenberg's delicatessen store
on mermaid avenue or at nathan's about a mile down
in the amusement area, . . . . " "the minimum wage
then was twenty-five cents an hour." "when, . . .
turned old enough to get his working papers at age
sixteen and found a job with western union, deliv-
ering telegrams in the city four hours a day after
high school, he bought home five dollars every
week, every friday." "we had a ford in our future,
the manufacturer told us, and there was no-knock
gasoline at gulf or at the sign of the flying red
horse at the filling stations for the automobilies
with knee-action wheels we could not yet afford to
buy." "lucky strike meant fine tobacco in those
days and we would walk a mile for a camel and for
the other cigarettes, . . . . " "a dollar an
hour, . . . a mile a minute, . . . a hundred a
week, a hundred miles an hour, wow!" "civil
service jobs were coveted, for the pay, the steady
white-collar work, and the vacation and pension
benefits, and, . . . those who obtained them were
looked to as professionals."

joseph heller
closing time
 

BEAT ROAD BENISON
 
ve day, vj day, "t. jean," 50's generation,
small mill towns across america,
watching spring rivers rising, flood tides
sweeping under bridges, waters flowing to other
places, an outside world,

late black nights alarm clock's existential
tick-tocking growing louder, gunshot explosions
deafening racing heartbeat, pulse,

restless young boys weary of school routines,
classroom, teacher demands, chafing at obedience
to "thou shalt nots," arid conformity, tortured
american puritan ethic,

everyday classes, homework, football pract-
ices, games, friday night record music sock hops,
school gym, hanging out, lunchwagon, dairy bar,
poolroom haunts,

estranged father relations, rejecting their
greasy mechanic's hands, tired millworker hours,
suit, white shirt, tie, 9 to 5 undesirable agenda,
alien territory,

pouty, teeny-voiced miniature blonde madonna-
mary girlfriends, going steadies, tiny titties
beneath tight soft sweaters, young teenage boys
still mother's heroes, gabrielles, margarets, con-
tinuous talk about going to college, getting an
education they couldn't understand,

confusing, contrasting, colliding ideologies,
capitalism, americanism, christianism, communism,
political right, left, platforms, party proposals,
clouding the brain, complex country, international
problems without easy answers, immediate quick solutions,

small towns fighting decay, slow, gradual
death, trees fallen, feeding "build, build, build"
fevers, new homesites for future nelson, anderson,
cleaver families, sears and roebuck house beauti-
ful america, madison avenue's constant message
"buy, buy, buy," more stuff dreams,

young men growing disenchanted wondering "is
this all there is," in a hurry for real life to
begin, eager to prowl, roam, do something other
than please pious, ignorant small-town coaches,
priests, police, off to see the big city, make it,
become real all-american man,

new york city "village" bohemian and poet
hanging out with others talking art, antler booths,
white horse tavern tables, browsing coliseum and
strand bookstores for used paperback bargains,
perusing new poetry chapbooks on gotham shelves,
cheap spaghetti dinners smokey basement italian
cafes, stubby candles flickering, dripping wax
down empty chianti bottles wicker coverings, live-
ly exciting washington square neighborhood collect-
ion of small theaters, clubs, white castle hamburg-
ers, beautiful young women, arty girls dressed in
tight black clothes, long bouncy ponytails,

" . . . you touch me i hear the sounds of
mandolins, . . . with your kiss my life
begins, . . . you're spring to me, all things
to me, . . .darling cling to me, for we are
creatures of the wind, and wild is the wind,"

creative young artist minds, eisenhower
l950's, in rebellion, rejecting commercialism,
opposing unthinking, lockstep conformity to marr-
iage, children, home with swimming pool, lawn to
mow, television, popcorn, ice cream, pizza family
movie weekends, sunday church services and sermons,

lone metropolitan exile, cruel, demanding
quiet long hours writing poems, plays, books,
staring down the ominous blank page, in serious
contest with damned, dame muse, creating stories,
characters, jack duluoz, sal paradise, ray smith,
leo percepied, cody pomeroy, dean moriarity, japhy
ryder, richard wisp, adam yulch, lalaghy pulver,
moving literary dreams,

"i'm looking for that lonely street, i've
got a sad, sad tale to tell, . . . perhaps to
find someone to bandy broken dreams and watch
an old love die, . . . a lonely street where
dim lights bring forgetfulness, where broken
dreams and memories meet, . . . ."

in between successes, failures, literary
scores, rejections, route 66, the great "mother
road," inviting highway miles, road-rapture-
odyssey west, short pacific coast, san francisco
stay, sojourn, listening to ginsberg read "howl,"
wildly declaring himself and others "beat," with
loose collection of writer-poet-friends, snyder,
corso, rexroth, creeley, burroughs, joyce johnson,
"huncky," sam and ann charters, the city lights
bookstore,

awakened on dark early new york city morning,
wild subterranean rumblings below concrete pave-
ment, deep in earthen core, another detox failure,
hincty to ninth degree, feeling madness closing in,
night terror flashback hallucinations, 202 calle
orizaba, mexico, weems, north atlantic, surviving
icy torpedo death, primal crushing scream rising,
"what am i doing here,"

"you made me leave my happy home, you took
my love and now you're gone, . . . i get the
blues about every night since i fell for you."

feeling a vision from cody, "yes, it's time
to go home, yes, home, home," seek the new, final
satori, get well on big sur bluffs above the pac-
ific, aboard pale dog west, nerved on black coffee,
a few johnny walker "reds," past noon, rucksack
library, dostoevsky, flaubert, baudelaire, rimbaud,
mike hammer paperbacks, bag of white castle ham-
burgers, off to chi-town, catch the zephyr, rails,
big wheels rolling across the plains, prairies,
deserts, san fran, west, whooee,
"stop the world and let me ooff, i'm tired
of going round and round, i've played the game
of love and lost, oh, stop the world and let
me off,"

diesel fume nausea, square wheels bounce,
turning over lonely concrete miles through
america's "heartland of pure thinking," passing
through settlements of WASP practicality, new
jersey, pennsylvania, ohio, indiana metes and
bounds, deep yoga breaths hoping to clear static
ricocheting around the skull, hoping d.t.'s don't
return, staring past bus bound windows, looking
for elwood, his rabbit, "wild one" brando, big
harley growling, mitchum on his ill-fated last
run,

". . . though a candle burned at both ends
can never last out the night, harlem butter-
fly it makes a lovely light, a lovely light,"

drifting, fitful dreaming, with thomasine
again, black village girlfriend, playwright, poet,
weekends, gala mad partying, blue note, vanguard
cellar bands, listening to poets read, eagle cafe,
impromptu stage, harlem night club hopping with
tommy, mingling with "jazz hipsters," after hours
jams, sessions, memories of sweet soulful music
like dope, soothing, calming withdrawals, agitation,
great riffs, chords, refrains, bix, "trane," min-
gus, the count, louis, "yardbird," dis, ornette,
coleman hawkins, cool velvet "lady blues," sassy
sarah's singing, village apartment breakfast feast,
greasy, omnibus ham, eggs, hash brown potatoes,
black coffee menu, watching sunrise across new
york skyline,

"an indigo tune sings to the moon, . . .
refrain of a lonesome lover, . . . a moan in
blue that wails the long night thru, . . . of
lonely hearts to learn, . . . of love lost in
harlem nocturne,"

gary, hammond, cal city, east chicago, whit-
ing, illinois state line, evergreen park, lake
shore outer drive, polk, dearborn street station
boarded up, depot tower clock without hands, cab-
bie's "fuck-a-right," to any trains west question,
left curbside, alone, heavy rucksack load, ankles
sore, swelling, near killing drink thirst need,
blank robot personas rushing past, stony "don't
bother me," in hurried faces, like phillip glass
"koyaanisquatsi" drab automatons, pompeii-mummified
survivors,

shy, solitary poet facing empty concrete
miles, lonely road leading home and blessing bene-
diction, knowing old highway bends and turns now
a dangerous dark place, unaware america's become a
land of psychos, serial murderers, violent night-
riders, spiritual flotsam and jetsam, now hard
path, difficult odyssey to reach a special "dream"
vision,

thumb arched ready for travel, make the journ-
ey west, pretending to live inside wild animal's
heart, rogue grizzly, timber wolf, coyote, mountain
lion, borrowing its courage to pass alone through
dark miles, distant perilous expanse, cicero, ber-
wyn, lockport, joliet, wilmington, bloomington,
springfield, staunton, across the mississippi into
missouri, quickly through metro st louis ghetto,
limits and miles beyond

road
was slippery
curve was sharp
white robe, halo
wings and harp
burma-shave

lonely highway shoulder, quiet and empty
lanes, no rides, no ghost cars from the past, grin-
ning chrome grills, hudsons, studebakers, nashes,
desotos, kaisers and fraziers, gone too vacation-
bound stationwagon touring families, weary husband-
fathers, chilly ray-ban wife-mothers, backseat
children rising from comic book collection stupor,
"how many more miles," whiny chorus echo, americans
all back home, maybe washing cars, mowing lawns,
backyard barbecuing, worrying over crabgrass,
dandelions, filling washers, loading dryers,
kirkwood, eureka, st clair, sullivan, cuba, st.
james, rolla, waynesville, lebanon, springfield,
joplin, and out of old mis-our-i,

his face
was loved
by just his mother
he burma-shaved
and now--
oh, brother

old rusting phillips 66 sign, cracked glass
mobilgas globe, flying red horse wing shot wound,
hoping for knockout beautiful woman caddy deville
ride and road romance, rock cafe chili, grannies
hot beef sandwiches, club cafe deluxe, bologna and
cheese on rye, sweet pickles, potato chips, soda
fountain mission orange, metro diner's "big bama
pies," smokey anonymous bard and grill pink neon
pause, quick old granddad snort, tap draft chaser,
galena, baxter springs, quapaw, commerce, a few
miles, last breath of kans-ass air,

the hobo
lets his
whiskers sprout
it's trains -- not girls
that he take out
burma-shave

into oklahoma and the oklahoma cities of the
mind, loose telepone lines looped across listing
poles, snaky wires flowing, lost in distant hori-
zon, flat tires ringing fence posts, run down 4 tv
channel motel, sad, tired furniture, clocks not
working, vinta, claremore, sapulpa, bristow, ok
city, clinton, sayre, dry dusty doomed roadside
zoos, clothesline art and wares, cheap elvis "last
supper" prints, chenille spreads, robes, array of
pottery, clay statues, rusty, empty water tanks
distant silhouettes, desert scarecrows, imagining
gray armies, ghostly immigrant mad arkies, okies,
"joad" families of other depression hard times,
fleeting glimpse, dillinger, bonnie and clyde,
butch, sundance, jack london, lost, orphan pony
express boy wildly slapping leather, covered
conestogas, settlers, relentless westward determ-
ination, outlaw "rio" russell, hem in ford coupe
heading north to ketchum, newest wife,

he's the boy
the gals forgot
his line
was smooth
his chin was not
burma-shave

great state if tex-ass, jericho, groom, con-
way, old cowpoke rider spirits out roaming desert
arroyos, arid barrancas, occasional "ye haw" sing-
ing with gentle breezes, lone specter with distant
stare, eyes burning like red, hot coals, moonlight
flooded skull, used to bedding down with bats,
spiders, snakes, distant coyotes companions, list-
ening, mournful nighttime plaints, old "bo's" wav-
ing hellos from empty boxcar doors, chessie cats
traveling companions, steel rail, crosstie nomad
ramblers, free men full of railroad fevers, irresistible
lure, click-clacking metal wheels, brief
pause, quaffing icy lone star longneck or three,
amarillo bar, pleasant chat with "chippy," gritty
tough survivor, splendid on the road femme friend,
washing away traveling dust, grit accumulations,
telling a few lies before moving along,

"that big eight-wheeler rolling down the
track means your true-loving daddy ain't com-
ing bacak, cause i'm movin' on, soon i'll be
gone, . . . i'm movin' on."

tucumcari, montoya, cuervo, santa rosa, apache
springs, pecos, santa fe, albuquerque, manuelito,
late afternoon mauve-colored rocky mountains cast-
ing dark shadows, sudden trembling, hearing cody
whisper "the dark laughter has come again, the
dark laughter has come again," remembering back
the mad dash years ago, dharma bums climbing a
mountain, finally understanding the answer lies
at the summit, knowing i've got to go away now,
time to leave the road to others,

forget winona, miss old san berdoo, not make
frisco city, the bookstores and poetry readings,
time to cease being prisoner, lost, trapped in
mad fucking poem, no more racing starvation ridge
to desolation "crackup," repeat sanitarium bars,
lost months under heavy-duty medicine, haunted by
dead father, memere, gerard, visions of jesus
watching from his cross, unnecessary painful
emotional burdens, declare freedom from football
humiliations, sad "stardust" "tenderly" one and
only true high school yearbook-reflector love
lost, inner angers, doubts, fears over new, next
written word, impossible demands to be "hep, man,
be hep,"

bedding down beside ancient pine scarred long
ago by lightning, "wind-that-walks" breeze rustl-
ing needles, quiet humming, drinking nearby stream
water cupped hands, slumber, warmed against deep
night forest mists, dreaming of splendid mountain
funeral stele cairn, morning first light with ray,
henry, george, alvah, cody, japhy, warren, ike,
crossing the void once more, no longer afraid of
altitude heights, hoping for snow, keep on climb-
ing, higher, higher, above the clouds now, climbing
higher, higher, beyond.

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ISSN: 1534-4037