Free Tristessa by Jack Kerouac Page B

too—
    â€œWhere we goin?”
    We walk outa there through a saddler’s prompt line of crossed sword eyes of miux ow you know, the old gantlet line, of respectable bourgeois Mexicans in the morning, but nobody stops us, no cops, we stumble out and down a narrow dirt street and up to another door and inside a little old court where an old man is sweeping with a broom and inside you hear many voices—
    He pleads with me with his eyes about something, like, “Dont start trouble,” I make the sign “ Me start trouble?” but he insists so I hesitate to go in but Tristessa and Cruz drag me confidently and I look back at the old man who has given his consent but is still pleading with his eyes—Great God, he knew!
    The place is a kind of unofficial morning snort-bar, Cruz goes into dark noisy interiors and comes out with a kind of weak anisette in a waterglass and I taste—I dont want any particularly—I just stand against the dobe wall looking at the yellow light—Cruz looks absolutely crazy now, with high hairy bestial nostrils like in Orozco the women screaming in revolutions but nevertheless she manages to look dainty too—Besides she is a dainty little person, I mean her heart, all night long she has been very nice to me and she likes me—In fact she’d screamed in a drunk one time “Tristessa you’re jealous because Yack wanted to marry me!”—and but she knows I love unlovable Tristessa—so she’s sistered me and I liked it—some people have vibrations that come straight from the vibrating heart of the sun, unjaded . . .
    But as we’re standing there Tristessa suddenly says: “Yack” (me) “all night”—and she starts imitating my shiver in the all-night street, at first I laugh, sun’s yellow hot now on my coat, but I feel alarmed to see her imitate my shiver with such convulsive earnestness and Cruz notices too and says “Stop Tristessa!” but she goes on, her eyes wild and white, shivering her thin body in the coat, her legs begin to crumple—I reach out laughing “Ah come on”—she gets more shivery and convulsive and suddenly (as I’m thinking “How can she love me making fun of me seriously like that”) she starts to fall, which imitation is going too far, I try to grab her, she bends way down to the ground and hangs a minute (just like descriptions Bull had just given me of heroin addicts nodding down to their shoetops on Fifth Avenue in the 20’s Era, way down till their head hung completely from the necks and there was nowhere to go but up or flat down on the head) and to my pain and crash Tristessa just bonks her skull and falls headlong on it right on the harsh stone and collapses.
    â€œ Oh no Tristessa !” I cry and grab her under the arms and twist her over and sit her in my haunches as I hunch against the wall—She is breathing heavily and suddenly I see blood all over her coat—
    â€œShe’s dying,” I think, “suddenly she’s decided now to die . . . This insane morning, this insane minute”—And here’s the old man with the pleading eyes still looking at me with his broom and men and women going in for anisette stepping right over us (with gingerly unconcern but slowly, scarcely glancing down)—I put my head to hers, cheek to cheek, and hold her tight, and say “ Non non non non ” and what I mean is “Dont die”—Cruz is on the ground with us on the other side, crying—I hold Tristessa by her little ribs and pray—Blood now trickles out of her nose and mouth—
    No one’s gonna move us outa that doorway—this I swear—
    I realize I’m there to refuse to let her die—
    We get water, on my big red bandana, and mop her a little—After whiles of convulsive shuddering suddenly she becomes extremely calm and opens her eyes and even looks