Free The Sea is My Brother by Jack Kerouac Page B

loafers.
    â€œFirst thing is to get the hell out of here,” muttered Wesley, moving off.
    â€œWhen do we eat?”
    â€œWe’ll eat in Hartford,” said Wesley. “How much money did you say you had?”
    â€œThree bucks or so.”
    â€œI’ll borrow some when we hit Boston,” mumbled Wesley. “Come on.”
    They took a State Street trolley and rode to the end of the line. They walked up the street for a few blocks and set up their hitchhiking post in front of a bakery. After fifteen minutes of thumbing, an agrarian looking old gentleman picked them up in his ancient Buick; all the way to Meriden, while the sun changed its color to a somber, burning orange and the meadows cooled to a clean, dark, and jungle green, the farmer carried on a monologue on
the subject of farm prices, farm help, and the United States Department of Agriculture.
    â€œPlayin’ right into their hands!” he complained. “A man ain’t got no faith in a country that’ll let a powerful group knock off the whole derned agricultural economy for their own interests!”
    â€œDo you mean the Farm Bloc?” inquired Everhart, while Wesley, lost in thought, sat gazing at the fields.
    The farmer tooted his horn four times as he barked four words: “you . . . dern . . . tootin’ . . . right!”
    By the time he dropped them off on the outskirts of Meriden, he and Bill were just warming up to their discussion of the Farm Security Administration and the National Farmers Union.
    â€œG’bye, lads!” he called, waving a calloused hand. “Be careful, now.” He drove off chuckling, tooting his horn in farewell.
    â€œNice old buck,” commented Everhart.
    Wesley looked around: “It’s almost sundown; we gotta move.”
    They walked across a deserted traffic zone and stood in front of a lunchcart. Great elms drooped above them in sunset stillness, calmly exuding their day’s warmth. A dog barked, breaking the quiet of the supper hour.

    â€œSleepy little place,” nodded Everhart with a faint smile. “I wonder what it would be like to live in a town like this—digesting one’s supper on the hammock facing the apple orchard, slapping off the mosquitoes, and retiring to the lullaby of a million crickets.”
    â€œSounds right peaceful,” smiled Wesley. “My hometown, Bennington, was a lot like this. I used to go swimmin’ in a little mill pond not a half-mile back o’ the house,” his voice softening in recollection, “and when the moon came out, I used to sit on the little sand beach and smoke—keep the mosquiters off . . .”
    â€œWe’ll have to go there someday,” planned Bill with a cheerful grin. “Your family up there?”
    Wesley frowned darkly and waved his hand: “Nah!”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œWhen the old lady died,” muttered Wesley with sullen reluctance, “the family broke up; we sold the house. Charley went to Boston and went in the saloon business with my uncle.”
    â€œWho’s Charley?”
    â€œThe old man.”
    â€œWhat happened to the rest of the family?” Everhart pursued with quiet concern.
    â€œSisters married off, brothers beat it—one of them’s in New Orleans, saw him in thirty-nine.”

    Everhart laid a hand on Wesley’s shoulder: “The old homestead all gone, heh? An old story in American life, by George. It’s the most beautiful and most heart-breaking story in American literature, from Dresser to Tom Wolfe—yes, you can’t go home again . . .”
    Wesley broke a twig in half and threw it away.
    â€œI don’t reckon you can, man,” at length, he said, in a half whisper. “All depends where your home is . . . lose one, make another.”
    They were silent after that until a grocery truck picked them up. The grocer took them three miles up the road to a lonely crossroads