Think of being a fiction-writer
like Kerouac—
all your characters are modelled on your friends.
How would it feel to be one of Jack’s
friends, like Gary Snyder or
Allen Ginsberg—
the material that came to hand
for the fiction-writer Kerouac.
Is it from lack of imagination
that a fiction-
writer depends so much on their friends
for characters? Jack’s
best character was Dean
Moriarty,
modelled on his crazy friend
Neal Cassidy, whose whole life was a fictional
exploit, driving the bus
Further with all those acid-
freaks—Mountain Girl and Gretchen Fetchin’
and all. They even spent an afternoon with someone Jack
never met—Timothy Leary—but he
was a drag.
They jumped back into Further and returned to Frisco.
Think of being a fiction-writer like Kerouac—
typewriter-Jack.
