Kerouac

During those early days of teaching high school, every day I would look forward to silent reading time. After a good seven minutes of fighting with my 35 16 year olds to be quiet, they'd finally let the post-lunch sleep hit them and they'd land with a crash on their desks, heads facing down. It would have been naive of me to assume that they'd all read. If they even had a book open, that was a good start.

Typically I'd sit behind my desk, reveling in the silence, and grading the day's assignments. Glancing up every time I heard a murmur, my head looked like a broken jack in the box, bouncing up and down. Eventually I'd have to perform rounds because after ten minutes, those who haven't already fallen asleep had more than likely slipped their cell phones out.

While walking around, I'd conspicuously glance at the books on the students' desks. More often than I would have liked, I'd find textbook open and worksheets full of questions still undone, as the student wrote impeccably fast, trying to get their homework from the previous night done before the next class. I'd happen upon magazines of every topic and title, from Sports Illustrated to Teen Bop. But, every so often, I'd find a student actually reading a book. Although teachers aren't supposed to play favorites, those students who were intimately reading during the time allotted had a special place in my heart.

Rarely was my well-stocked mini library used. Before the school year started, I set it up, alphabetizing around sixty books that I either bought myself or took from the library's give away pile. Within three days the bookshelf was destroyed with missing covers and crumpled paperbacks. Within thirty days five percent of the books were missing. By the end of the year I had the first and fifth Harry Potter books; apparently two, three, four, and six decided to disappear.

One girl, with her messy curly hair always pulled back, would analyze every anime book she could get her hands on. When she outgrew the drawings (as many high school students were wont to do), she picked up various science fiction novels from Douglas Adams to Frank Herbert. Another boy, head always down, was found reading any book that dealt with a serial killer. With all fears aside, at least he was reading. One day, however, I came across a boy who had a rather familiar book.

Sitting in the front row, he fumbled through his pink backpack until he found the book he was looking for. There, in his hands sat William S Burroughs's Naked Lunch. I should have noticed it before. The boy was a modern day Ginsberg, sexual attraction and all. He loved Emily Dickenson, which meant he was one of the four students who actually read my assigned reading of her poem "Because I Could Not Stop For Death."
I wanted to talk to him about it, discuss the importance of the beatnik period, but I knew that relating to and having an intellectual conversation with a high school boy was close to impossible. Instead, after the bell rang, I casually commented.

"Burroughs, eh?"
"Yeah, you know him?" the boy asked in a slightly high pitched voice.
"I read him college. He's really good."
"Yeah, okay," he said, looking around the room for a quick and easy escape. He spotted his friend and ran off, as if I was carrying a plague that he didn't want to accidentally catch.

I remember when I first saw the black and white photo of Jack Kerouac on the balcony in New York City. He stood there, smoking, making the activity I was warned against so many times look incredibly cool. His dark hair was perfectly placed and his shirt was messily tucked into his pants as a book was held steady in the crux of his arm. He looked out in the distance, transfixed, possibly thinking of an escape.

Like many people, I went through a beatnik period. I didn't wear berets and black turtlenecks while hitting bongos, but I did read the books of the time period with a passionate thirst. They spoke my language. They spoke of breaking free, of getting away, of being disconnected with the government. They spoke of music and poetry. I thought they were inspirational, the writers, not just because they started their own revolution, but because years later the thing they created was still relatable.

My first journey into the world was, naturally, with On the Road by Kerouac himself. A friend held it out to me, wearing a half smirk. "You need to read this," he said with a serious voice and glistening eyes. Between classes, homework, and my job I did in fact read it. I found that the book spoke to me more if I read it outside. The book needed room to breathe and I needed to exhale with it. Sitting on the giant green field by our school's union, I held the worn out copy in my hands and learned about choices. Simply, I loved it. I related to it. I wanted to be one of the mad ones Kerouac spoke of, the ones "who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..."

I moved on to his poetry, essays, and other novels. "The Subterraneans" intrigued me, even though I was slightly distraught by his lack of periods in the novel. I would read for hours, just trying to find a stopping point. But after reading his "Belief & Technique for Modern Prose," I understood why the sparse punctuation marks. He was making a point. He didn't want to be bound to rules and regulations; he wanted to be submissive, he wanted to write what he knew, and he didn't care about spelling or any other restrictions. I respected it and as an eager to learn naive writer, I tried to unsuccessfully copy the avante garde style. My teachers didn't so much agree with Kerouac's beliefs.

Broadening my admiration, I set sites on Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Kesey. I was a girl of 19 with long brown hair who wore jeans and black tank tops. I was supposed to be reading books like "In Her Bergdorf Blonde Shoes in the City," not literature of a period that died way before I was born. And yet, that was what I liked. I carried around my "Portable Beat Reader" with pride, having it there in case an urgent question was proposed, such as which book came out first or who had the best hair.

In Orlando, there's a local History Center, which boasts about all of the achievements that have occurred in central Florida. Holding artifacts and tales, the four story building that at one time was a court house, is creaky and full of history. On the third floor rests an original manuscript of Kerouac's Dharma Bums, complete with red mark ups and notes. I used to visit it for inspiration. Camera and journal in hand, I'd stand by the glass box containing my idol's work and reassure myself that one day I could be as talented as him. One day my work may be boxed in glass for all to see, revolutionary movement or not. I would look at the scribbles and imagine what he was thinking when he made them. Was he angry with the editor? Did he agree with the crossed out "you?" Needless to say I was one of the only people who visited that side of the center.

After college I entered the work force. While teaching 11th grade students English I didn't have time for my own personal reading, just grading badly worded papers and re-reading Of Mice and Men for a fifth time in order to create perfect test questions. I lost a lot of childish ways as well, having to be a grown up in front of my students. Modern day music bored me and I found solace going to sleep at ten o’clock.

Last month I returned to the Orlando History Center to see a new exhibit on the history of video games. As I passed a display of the evolution of the controller, I noticed how parents gravitated towards older, more nostalgic games like Pong, while their kids stayed firmly placed by Guitar Hero, stating that those other games looked so lame.

My feet naturally gravitated toward the permanent exhibit of Dharma Bums, which I almost forgot was there. As I looked down at the glass box, I saw the scribbles that used to give me questions and excitement, but as I stared at them, I saw them as just...scribbles. Somehow in the year I grew up. I started to think of what Kerouac represented--getting away from all responsibility, living life for yourself and vainly not thinking of others. Driving across the country with Dean Moriarty and his endless supply of scotch and Benzedrine didn't seem as tempting anymore. I suppose I got older and because of that, the escape became more of an after thought—an idea I once had that thankfully never materialized.

Standing in the deserted corridor, I thought about that student for the first time since I stopped teaching. I hoped he was still living his days full of thoughts of Burroughs, still riding high on the idea of breaking free. I wished that I could go back and tell him to do it. Tell him to drop everything after high school and get out. Maybe we all need a period of our life to be mad. And maybe, if he's good enough, maybe he could bring this world the new literary revolution it needs. Maybe we all need to explode like spiders across the stars.