Ok, this isn't really Jack Kerouac, author of On the Road. It's Peter Orlovsky, the lover of Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsburg.
I didn't really have a date with Jack Kerouac, either. But Jurgen came close.During my freshman year at Augustana, I often saw him sitting by himself in the Student Union lounge -- in his twenties, tall, husky, bearded, with wavy brown hair and brown chest hair sneaking up over his lumberjack shirt. He would smoke a pipe, of all things, drink coffee, and read a book or scribble into a little spiral notebook. Too old to be a student -- we didn't have any "nontraditional" students at Augie -- but certainly not a professor. Was he a townie who for some reason liked the ambience of the Student Union at a small Lutheran college?
I had just come out, but I had only told two people: my brother, who was fine with it, and my best friend, who slammed the door in my face and never spoke to me again. If the college administration found out, I would be expelled. So I couldn't walk up to him and say "Hi, are you gay?" I had to use deduction: he's not with a woman, he dresses oddly, must be gay.
One Tuesday afternoon I got a cup of coffee myself -- even though I hated the stuff -- and sat down in the chair across from him.
"What are you writing?"
He looked up and smiled. "Just a poem I'm working on. 'Tucumcari Two-Step: Heat in the Year of the Drought.'"
"Cool. I want to be a writer, too." Actually, my career goals were up in the air at the moment. Through high school I planned on becoming a missionary-linguist, translating the Word of God for isolated tribes, but that was impossible now.
Left: Jack Huston, who played Keroauc in Kill Your Darlings
I had just come out, but I had only told two people: my brother, who was fine with it, and my best friend, who slammed the door in my face and never spoke to me again. If the college administration found out, I would be expelled. So I couldn't walk up to him and say "Hi, are you gay?" I had to use deduction: he's not with a woman, he dresses oddly, must be gay.
One Tuesday afternoon I got a cup of coffee myself -- even though I hated the stuff -- and sat down in the chair across from him.
"What are you writing?"
He looked up and smiled. "Just a poem I'm working on. 'Tucumcari Two-Step: Heat in the Year of the Drought.'"
"Cool. I want to be a writer, too." Actually, my career goals were up in the air at the moment. Through high school I planned on becoming a missionary-linguist, translating the Word of God for isolated tribes, but that was impossible now.
Left: Jack Huston, who played Keroauc in Kill Your Darlings
"Who are your favorite authors?" he asked.
"Oh...um...Isaac Asimov, of course. Robert Heinlein, Andre Norton,..."
"Sci fi -- that's for Adam's Bookstore Babies!" He gestured at the bookstore where my friend Adam sold science fiction and comic books. "You need a real man's literature. Hemingway, Kerouac, Henry Miller. Here -- try Wallace Stevens."
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds
I had no idea what the poem was about, but a muscular guy with a big...um...cigar was far superior to anything we had studied so far in my stupid English class.
Jurgen was a student after all, an English major, 28 years old -- after high school he had "bummed around" Europe for a couple of years, then moved to California, then hitchhiked to Rock Island (where his parents lived) for college.
All gay men moved to California, and in his life history, he didn't mention women. He must be gay!
The next day I had to work, but on Thursday I hung out with Jurgen again Neither of us came out, or said anything about gay people; it was the Student Union, after all, crowded with students who might overhear us.
But we didn't mention liking girls, either.
"Sci fi -- that's for Adam's Bookstore Babies!" He gestured at the bookstore where my friend Adam sold science fiction and comic books. "You need a real man's literature. Hemingway, Kerouac, Henry Miller. Here -- try Wallace Stevens."
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds
I had no idea what the poem was about, but a muscular guy with a big...um...cigar was far superior to anything we had studied so far in my stupid English class.
Jurgen was a student after all, an English major, 28 years old -- after high school he had "bummed around" Europe for a couple of years, then moved to California, then hitchhiked to Rock Island (where his parents lived) for college.All gay men moved to California, and in his life history, he didn't mention women. He must be gay!
The next day I had to work, but on Thursday I hung out with Jurgen again Neither of us came out, or said anything about gay people; it was the Student Union, after all, crowded with students who might overhear us.
But we didn't mention liking girls, either.
More after the break