Kerouac, Maggie Cassidy, observations in travel
From Pawtucketville to South Lowell the route by bus encompassed the city - down Moody, to Kearny Square below the high school, the fleet of buses, the people huddled waiting against doorfronts of soda parlors, and 5 & 10s, drugstores-- The sad traffic crunching in from winter, out to winter - The bleak blue raw feel of the wind from the woods citifying the few sad lights- There I changed to the South Lowell bus- It would show up always catching at my throat- the mere name of it as the busdriver'd rolled it in the window enough to make my heart beat- I'd look at other people's faces to see if they saw the magic- The ride itself grew grimmer- From the square out up Central, to Back Central, to the outlying dark streets of the town where dim frost sits the howling wind garbage pails in cold moonlight- Out along the Concord where factories enlisted its famous flow- out beyond even them- to a dark highway where Massachusetts Street under a brown dumb street lamp spoked in, small, mean, old, full of my name and the love of it- There I'd get off the bus among trees, by the river, and dodge the mudholes, seven cottages down on the right to her rambling old unfenced brown-windowed house overtopped by clacking skeletal trees of the sudden from Boston sea winds blown over wilderness, railyards and hoar-step. Jer actual house, the actual light...
Keruoac, Maggie Cassidy
I really enjoy when a writer employs locality and draws me in through basic functions. As I age, a lot of Kerouac reads pretentious to me, but his basic work and commitment still guided a generation of creatives