Free Tristessa by Jack Kerouac

again—I had already twice visited El Indio’s to check on him, not there, but his brown daughter with the beautiful brown sad eyes staring out into the night as I question her, “Non, non,” is all she can say, she is staring at some fixed point in the garbage of the sky, so all I do is stare at her eyes and I have never seen such a girl—Her eyes seem to say “I love my father even tho he takes narcoticas, but please dont come here, leave him alone”—
    Tristessa and I go down to the slippery garbage street of dull brown cokestand lights and distant dim blue and rose neons (like rubbed chalk crayon) of Santa Maria de Redondas, where we hook up with poor bedraggled wild looking Cruz and start off somewhere—
    I have my arm around Tristessa’s waist and walk sadly with her—Tonight she doesnt hate me—Cruz always liked me and still does—In the past year she has caused poor old Bull every kind of trouble with her drunk shenanigans—O there’s been pulque and vomiting in the streets and groans under heaven, spattered angel wings covered with the pale blue dirt of heaven—Angels in hell, our wings huge in the dark, the three of us start off, and from the Golden Eternal Heaven bends God blessing us with his face which I can only describe as being infinitely sorry (compassionate), that is, infinite with understanding of suffering, the sight of that Face would make you cry—I’ve seen it, in a vision, it will cancel all in the end—No tears, just the lips, O I can show you!—No woman could be that sad, God is like a man—It’s all a blank how we go up the street to some small narrow dark street where two women are sitting with steaming cauldrons of some kind, or steamcups, where we sit on wood crates, I with my head on Tristessa’s shoulder, Cruz at my feet, and they give me a drink of hot punch—I look in my wallet, no more money, I tell Tristessa, she pays for the drinks, or talks, or runs the whole show, maybe she’s the leader of the gang of thieves even—
    The drinks dont help much, it’s getting late, towards dawn, the chill of the high plateau gets into my little sleeveless shirt and loose sports coat and shino pants and I start shivering uncontrollably—Nothing helps, drink after drink, nothing helps—
    Two young Mexican cats attracted by Tristessa come and stand there drinking and talking all night, both have mustaches, one of them is very short with a round baby face with pear-like cheeks—The other is taller, with wings of newspaper stuck somehow in his jacket to protect him from the cold—Cruz just stretches out right in the road in her topcoat and goes to sleep, head on the ground, on the stone—A cop arrests somebody at the head of the alley, we around the little candle flames and steampots watch without much interest—At one point Tristessa kisses me gently on the lips, the softest, just-touchingest kiss in the world—Aye, and I receive it with amazement—I’ve made up my mind to stay with her and sleep where she sleeps, even if she sleeps in a garbage can, in a stone cell with rats—But I keep shivering, no amount of wrapping in can do it, for a year now I’ve been spending every night in my sleeping bag and I’m no longer inured to ordinary dawn chills of the earth—At one point I fall right off the crate I occupy with Tristessa, land in the sidewalk, stay there—Other times I’m up haranguing long mysterious conversations with the two cats—What on earth are they trying to say and do?—Cruz sleeps in the street—
    Her hair hangs out all black across the road, people step over her.—It’s the end.
    Dawn comes gray.
    PEOPLE START PASSING to go to work, soon the pale light begins to reveal the incredible colors of Mexico, the pale blue shawls of women, the deep purple shawls, the lips of people faintly roseate in general aubeal