for Greg

Two rides had taken him to Bakersfield
then Tracy, a railroad town a howl

and a long red sun away
past tangerine groves and long

melon fields to an LA bound bus
where I sat already going the wrong direction.

“Miss would you like to use my raincoat for a pillow?”
No, I replied, but, come sit.

The bus groaned towards golden town.
He was my kind of mad who smelled

my wounds.  We both looked greedily
out on the whole mad promised land arriving

at the shining ragged sticky dawn of Hollywood.
“the fantastic end of America”

We were sweating a fit of sickness
and hit the first hotel we could.  He said we needed

whiskey and hurried to find a pint.  We took turns on slugs.
He stood behind me at the mirror

and we danced in the bathroom that way
and towards the bed.  I let my dress slide off in reverence.

“I knew you was a nice college boy.”

                                                            ~ as suggested by Jack Kerouac in the
                                                               50th Anniversary Edition of
                                                               On the Road