Kerouac's Lolita
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Kerouac's Lolita

What if what if's were true?

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Kerouac's Lolita
Seth Wegner

It was Lolita who suggested they give him a ride, the man who was walking backwards heel before toe on the dusty route 80 heading towards the Paris of the West - San Francisco. She was kneeling on the car bench, exposing the dust stained seat of her white shorts, which were beginning to better match her off-white tennis sneakers. She was perhaps thirteen years old. She thrust a look of scorn at the clean cut, broad-shouldered man in his mid thirties who was sitting beside her in the driver’s seat and who kept tossing concerned looks of his own in her direction. With a tone that would give the queen of England herself a shock, she combined request and command into one short idea.

“Let’s pick him up!”

Upon being directed to stop for the youthful traveller walking in the gravel, the man sitting next to the girl bit his lip and began to decelerate and turn off to the side of the road. In doing so, there was a certain moment of hesitation, in which he straightened the wheel back to center before another hurrying command issued by the small girl.

“C’mon, just slow down already! What are you, a 15 year old with a heavy foot? No, of course not. You’re my dad. Or whatever.”

She hung onto the word, dad, for an extra second, which was enough to create a stir in her father’s cheeks. He began again to slow down and turn to the side of the road, to the apparent joy of the man walking along the dusty shoulder.

~

Evening had set in. He had nothing but a few dollars in his pocket of the old military jacket he had bought on the road, but was content with the knowledge that he would soon reach Henri in San Francisco. There was a bus station nearby, but to spend the money on yet another ticket would feel like defeat. His stride was long, but not nearly as long as it had been that morning, and with an enthusiastic wave and a grin that revealed ample teeth, the man in the military jacket jogged to where the car had come to a stop on the gravel shoulder. The door opened and out jumped a girl in white shorts who looked to be near the age of twelve.

“Hi mister, want a lift? It’s mighty boring in here with just my father.” He was taken aback by the way she blatantly insulted her father in front of him, but realized that he was quite the wild child himself, so he offered his hand to her and said,
“Sure do! I’m Jack. What can I call you?”

“Well my names Dolores. Or Lo. My Dad calls me Lolita but I’m not much fond of it. It kind of sounds juvenile.”

“Lo it is then.”

How Interesting, Jack thought as he walked forward to introduce himself to the man driving the car, that she talks with an air of regality just like Stella’s mother.

“Hi, I’m Jack,” he said with a wide grin as he leaned over to shake the drivers hand. Your daughter said I could catch a ride with you folks.” Still showing off his teeth, he added, “Thanks a million for pullin’ over, by the way.”

“You know, sometimes I’m not sure who pulls the strings with us: me as her father, or her as my daughter. My name’s Humbert, I assume you’re heading all the way to San Francisco?”

“Sure am, mind if I call you Bert?

“Well come on then, I’m afraid there isn’t much room, but you seem like you don’t mind being in a tight situation. And I prefer Humbert.”

“Alright then, the space is no problem. Thanks again, I was starting to think I’d have to spend my last dollars on a bus ticket. That’d be a grind for sure, arriving in San Francisco and trying to find my buddy without any sort of jangle to my pocket.”

The girl Lo jumped back into the conversation as Jack was loading his bag into the back seat.

“What are you going to do there anyway mister? You don’t seem too prepared for anything.”

“Lolita, don’t patronize the man like that”

“Yeah ok, Jack can handle it though. You’re not upset, right Jack?”

“It’s fine.” Who was this child? “I’m actually heading out there to meet an old buddy of mine who’s got a place. Maybe try and write something catchy for the silver screen, you know?”

Humbert hates movies, he says they make you weak in the head.”

“Don’t call me that Lo!” snapped Humbert. “You know I don’t like it.”

“Yeah ok.” Lo dismissed the outburst without a second thought, and continued to talk with Jack.

“Anyway mister, I think you should try it. You should write something for me.” As she said this she looked at her father who had his eyes on the road, then back at Jack. It was an odd sort of gaze, one that Jack couldn’t place. He decided it was simply inquisitive.

They were all quiet for the next twenty minutes, in which jack watched his temporary travel companions with great interest. They were an interesting duo, father and daughter – but the way they acted made them seem to be more like two equals on some great journey.

Within the first hour, she put her hand on Humberts hand on the shifter, and just watched him for a while. Every so often he would gaze back down at her and smile. When she didn’t return the smile, he would turn his eyes back toward the road and continue driving. It went on for those twenty minutes, until he finally said, “I do love you, you know.”

“I know,” she replied and leaned over to put her head on his shoulder.

As unreadable as they were, times like these were the moments in which Jack truly wished he could be satisfied with a normal life in New York with a family of his own. To settle down with a nice girl and have children. A boy and a girl. That would be nice, he thought. As always, however, he reminded himself that he was in no way cut out for a mundane existence. He needed to get out there and dig it, as his friend Neal liked to say. He needed to dig the people, dig the music, dig the experiences he had. He was a writer, bred for more than just working every day. To write about great things one must experience great things.

~

It was fully dark when they Humbert decided it was time to pull off at a downtrodden motel. Since the motel and Danny’s Diner across the street were the only two buildings for nearly 100 miles, he turned into a place that had two lights out on the vacancy sign so it read “Roadside Motel: Vcacy.” Even so, the parking lot was full of cars, most of which were dented old beaters that seemed to Jack as though they would scarcely make it to the grocery store, let alone along a dusty highway for hours at a time. But then again, such was the norm for many people then – when times were rough, one had to use what they could get.

“Real classy, dad. We’ll be super cozy tonight for sure.” She had such a sarcastic tone in her voice that even Jack felt uncomfortable as he waited for the father’s reaction.

There was something about the way she said dad that gave him a strange feeling. Almost like there was a complete lack of respect from Lo to her father. He decided it was not his place, and that he would be leaving them anyway, as he had not the means to pay for a hotel. He voiced his concerns to Humbert, and was in the process of thanking him for the ride, when Lolita chimed in with an idea.

“Why don’t you just pay for a room for Jack tonight? By the looks of this place it won’t cost you more than our room at the last place. Boy was that swanky.”

“Lolita…”

“Please, Dad? It’s so fun to have company with us, and I’m sure Jack would love a shower.”

Jack, who had been sitting on the edge of this awkward conversation, decided it was worth an awkward rejection to have a free bed and a warm shower for the night. He couldn’t let this opportunity slip away. “Actually, now that you mention it, it has been quite some time since I’ve had a decent night’s sleep, or washed with a real hot shower.”

“See Dad? Come on, I’ll be good I promise!”

Humbert seemed to have softened at the change in Lolita’s tone; she wasn’t bending the word dad as much as she had been before. Jack thought her tactic for getting things out of Humbert was interesting, if not indicative of the level of parenting he had seen in many of his friends, which was far from adequate.

“Alright then. Jack, how would you like a room for the night, on us? We can take you the rest of the way tomorrow after a nice breakfast.

“I don’t know about nice. I’m just going to say that the diner looks pleasantly shabby.” Lolita again.

“As long as they have coffee in the morning, I’ll be quite alright,” Humbert replied after Jack had thanked him with many a generous pat on the back and warm remarks. They climbed out of the car, and looking like a hodgepodge family, Humbert, Jack, and Lolita retrieved their bags from the backseat and walked to the lobby.

They must have certainly seemed a motley folk to the clerk, Jack later thought. He, with his dusty, road worn clothes, Humbert in his fresh black suit with movie star hair, and of course Lolita, standing there in her white shorts and shoes at Humbert’s side, seemed to be three wandering souls whose paths happened to join by mere chance, yet were connected by some familial bond.

The clerk, however, did not seem to notice their eclectic styles and had at first only presented one key on the counter. He took Jack for Lo’s brother, and naturally assumed they’d stay together.

“We’ll take two rooms, actually,” Humbert informed the aging man behind the counter with a tinge of irritation. “This fellow here is just along for the ride.” He pointed at Jack, who shrugged and smiled his toothy grin, showing that he took no offense.

“Aren’t we all, dad?” There was that tone again. Her level of disrespect toward Humbert continued to puzzle Jack, but he forgot his bewilderment soon enough when the clerk slid the other key toward him and responded to Lo.

“We sure are kiddo.”

~

They decided to part ways for dinner - Humbert and Lolita wanted to wash up before eating, but Jack was too hungry to wait. He dashed across the street to the diner, which had a Large red and sat down in a red vinyl booth with hairline cracks covering both seat and backrest. When he sat down, he felt a hard bump underneath him. Reaching his first two fingers into one of the larger cracks, he found a quarter, and used it to buy himself a sandwich and a glass of iced tea.

He ate in silence, thinking about Humbert and Lolita. What was their story? Why did Lolita seem to despise her father one moment, and tolerate him the next? It perplexed him, and adding to the intrigue was the question of why the girl and her father were on a road in the middle of America without the girl’s mother. It didn’t seem like she enjoyed being with her father, so perhaps there had been a divorce. It would explain the bitterness that she displayed. Yes, that must be it.

But no. There was something else, something darker that was haunting her. He eventually decided it would have to wait, regardless of how active his imagination was, because if he didn’t want to have to buy another glass of iced tea he had to leave the diner. The hostess was quite the drill sergeant, even though it didn’t seem like the waitress wanted him to leave. Quite the opposite, in fact. She returned to his table nearly every five minutes asking if everything was satisfactory, and grazed his arm with her hand more than once. He could tell her sort – lonely, bored, and incredibly horny. Her red polo shirt was riding up in the back due to her money belt, and as she walked away jack could make out her white lace underwear. She was just waiting for her prince charming to come into the diner and sweep her off of her feet. He thought about asking when she got off work, but didn’t want to lead her on, and was too preoccupied anyway with his thoughts about his new companions.

He returned to his room, and at first the key wouldn’t work. He tried turning it upside down, but when that too failed, and he was about to complain to the front desk, he realized he had been attempting to enter Humbert and Lolitas room. It was directly to the left of his own room, so feeling a bit bashful, he looked away from another couple that was coming out of another room down the line and entered into the dark safety of room number 124 at the Roadside Motel.

It was a very basic room. The were two twin beds positioned directly underneath two paintings of a sailboat and a peach, the lies of which were most likely gracing the headboards of all 96 beds in the motel. He looked to his left, and wondered if Humbert and Lolita had gone to the restaurant yet. He listened quietly at the locked door adjoining the two rooms and decided he was alone.

Taking out his a dented steel flask from the breastpocket, and an old torn notebook from inside the pocket of the military jacket, Jack began to write down notes for a potential screenplay.

  • Lolita
  • Humbert – father
  • Lolita
  • Lolita

He was stuck on Lolita. There was something about her – something about her relationship with Humbert that was different from other kids. He couldn’t place it, but he decided he would try and write a character and name her Dolores, or Lo, or Lolita.

He sipped his dwindling supply of Old Fitzgerald whiskey and continued to brainstorm ideas for a story that could very likely never work, but that would explore Lolita’s character. Eventually, he fell asleep with his flask open and his notebook on his lap, but not before cussing on the notion that he couldn’t get Lo’s story right. It seemed impossible to create the perfect series of events to cause a girl to be the way she was.

~

He awoke to a door slam at roughly two in the morning. The flask spilled on his pants. He’d have to wash that at some point. Or not. It would not matter that much living with Henri. He heard muffled whispers, some yells, and other fits of grunting and giggles before water started running in the bathroom. The sounds were all drifting into his room through the wall that supported the ship and peach paintings. Party due to the whiskey, and partly due to the fogginess that comes from being pulled from a slumber, it took Jack a noticeably long time to remember that the room adjacent to his was where Lolita and supposedly Humbert were sleeping.

The sounds were escalating now; he thought he could make out a mattress creaking, so he tested it by bouncing up and down on his own bed, which produced an identical noise. Suddenly a loud bang directly on the wall made him jump up and step away. It sounded like a beast from the plains of Africa was about to break into his room.

Poor Lo, he thought, as the grunts became more and more audible. Humbert is in there probably shagging the waitress from across the street. Good God, what a traumatic experience.

It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep again once he got into the stiff motel blankets. It had been days since his last bed. He thought once more about the waitress from the diner before finally falling into darkness. She was pretty enough, why hadn’t he taken a chance with her tonight? Now it was too late, as she was more than likely being screwed in the room next to his. Did she notice the twelve-year-old girl in the other bed trying to sleep as her father got laid? She must have been quite desperate for love, or was simply drunk. That was entirely possible as well.

~

The next morning they met at the diner for breakfast. Having slept soundly for the rest of the night and showered when he awoke, Jack felt like new man. He clapped his hands when he sat down, trying hard to avoid discussing events from the night before. It was Lolita who spoke first.

“How did you sleep last night, Jack?”

She cut right to the chase, and it seemed to Jack that she was forcing him to make a comment on something he did not feel comfortable diving into. She was looking right at him, almost with a flirtatious gaze. He wanted to ask Humbert what the fuck happened last night, how in God’s name could you do that with your daughter in the room, but he knew angering a driver this generous could be a terrible mistake out on the road, as it could be ages before another person offered him a ride. He chose a more neutral response.

“Wonderfully, thanks again, friend, for the room. A good nights sleep really gives you a new perspective in which to dig life.”

“Yes, well, we’ll get you to a bit outside of San Francisco today. The city isn’t on our way, per say.” Humbert replied without looking up from his fried egg and toast.

“Leave me wherever you need to, I’m just happy I’ve got a ride with some great folks two days in a row!” He flashed his wide, toothy grin again. Lolita sighed and shook her head.

“I didn’t like the paintings,” Lolita continued again in between bites of her egg. “They were too big. Made the walls seem too small.” This time it was definitely an allusion. She was looking at him again, like she knew what it was that he thought he knew. Her flirtatious gaze lingered, which wouldn’t have bothered Jack all that much, except for the fact that he found himself returning it. When he realized this, he looked down at his coffee and egg and feigned great interest in a chip in the porcelain mug. Why was this twelve-year-old getting to him like this? Humbert was expressionless. Was he aware of his twelve-year-old’s flirtatious nature?

The waitress from the night before came back, the poor girl. She was probably hoping Humbert would take her along for the ride. Instead of talking to Humbert, however, she approached Jack and once again with her hand on his shoulder asked him if everything was satisfactory. Jack, however, incredibly confused by both his reaction to Lo and the waitress’s complete disinterest in Humbert, failed to deliver a smooth reply and soon the hostess called the girl to bus another table. So much for that. Damn drill sergeant.

After they finished their breakfast, they paid the motel clerk, and Humbert left quite a sizable tip on the counter, and said discreetly, “she can be a bit messy sometimes, sorry about that.” Jack, thought to be just out of earshot, was actually standing just within the distance that allowed him to hear Humbert’s quiet apology, and once again, his curiosity was piqued. A disturbing thought flitted into his mind, but he pushed it back, repulsed. His curiosity, however, in his own imagination would soon get the better of him.

They drove the rest of the distance to the turn off towards San Francisco in relative silence once again. Only when they reached the point where they were to part ways did Lo turn and say to Jack, “I was serious yesterday. You should write something for me. Or about me. Or something. Whatever. I’ll just know when it’s famous that it was for me.” If only she had known that the entire ride the gears of Jack’s head had been whirring and the pieces were fitting together in Jack’s mind for a movie that was sure to baffle cinema-goers and critics alike.

“We’ll see Lo, thanks again for the ride Humbert!” They let him off near a hot dog stand on the side of the road, and he watched the little black car drive off into the distance until the heat lines on the road obscured his long distance vision. That was the last he ever saw of Humbert or Lolita. He ordered a hot dog with mustard, and as he paid the ten cents thought to himself Lolita and Humbert. Humbert and Lolita. Father and daughter? Lovers? Impossible, yet why not? It would explain why he had felt such a strong presence in Lo, and also why the waitress had been so pleased to see him, Jack, that morning.

“Excuse me sir?” Apparently his thoughts had been not so private after all, and the Hot dog salesman wore a concerned and confused look.

“Never mind. It’s writer stuff, you know, books and movies. Thanks for the hotdog.” Jack turned and walked back towards the road, sticking his thumb out once again in the iconic hitch hiking position. It wasn’t long before a car full of young college aged kids pulled over demanding quarters to help pay for gas in exchange for a lift. Jack obliged, he had one or two quarters left, and squeezed in the backseat with 2 other boys close to his age. The driver turned around and extended his hand, wearing a smile similar to Jack’s own toothy grin.

“Names Gabriel. Lets go to frisco!”

~

It was a short ride in comparison to the others, and in no time Jack was saying farewell to the college kids and was heading for his friend Henri Cru’s apartment. He had to take a bus over the Golden Gate Bridge, to Marin City, a housing project built for navy yard workers during the war. When he finally found Henri’s shack, he saw a note on the door. “Jack Claptrap! If nobody’s home climb in through the window, signed Henri Cru.”

He laughed, remembering the days with Henri in college, and climbed in through a small window to the side. Henri was asleep with his girl, but Jack saw a large typewriter on the table that Henri had procured for him. He was aching with desire to begin writing his ideas, as scandalous as they might be. Instead of waking his sleeping friends, he found a roll of paper and aligned the typewriter. He was ready. He began to type the title of his new screenplay. Lolita, by Jack Kerouac.

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