Sylvia's wall thermometer reads 85F degrees. The top of my head is beginning to simmer a little, no sizzle yet. Roof vent has been popped, shad-side window cranked out, small floor fan pushing the air around. I overslept, now trying to catch up studying, still copying notes from Nicosia's Memory Babe Kerouac biography.

The poet Robert Duncan, reading this [cafeteria, Visions of Cody] scene in manuscript in 1954, was struck by Kerouac's extraordinary ability to sustain a 1500-word narrative in which the only exterior action, besides the passing of pedestrians, is the flashing of a neon light.

and from Visions of Cody itself,

"... my heart broke in the general despair and opened up inwards to the Lord, I made a supplication in this dream."

***

I dreamed of a small personal jet a wealthy friend owned. I let him park it on the vacant lot near my house. I looked out one day soon thereafter to see it being stolen - towed off down a shady alleyway at the lot's far end. I ran to cach up with the thief but I was too late. The towing tractor had reach the vacant nighttime avenue the alley gave onto and joined the column of carnival acts moving out in drays and flatbeds to some faraway venue, where it would be exhibited. I told the policeman I called then that I'd had it nearby because my friend had promised to teach me to fly it, if only I could get past my fears. Secretly I knew, though, that I would not have needed lessons. Secretly I knew I would have flown it just fine, on instinct.