Kerouac's semi-autobiographical, stream-of-consciousness prose, spontaneously written during a three-week binge, is said to have energized the Beat Generation subculture and laid intellectual groundwork for the social upheavals of the '60s. The work is less a travelogue than a pulsating tale of searchers living on the edge, but it inspired a passion for carefree, bare-bones travel. And it rose to popularity just as the interstate highway system (and before The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) came into being.
USA TODAY's Jerry Shriver reread the book during a 1,727-mile journey trip through America's midsection. His goals: to See What's Out There and give armchair Kerouac fans an update on the state of roadside culture. (Owing to his middle age and hopeless entrenchment in the establishment, pliant bohemian chicks were off-limits.)
Sunday
I'm driving a rented Mitsubishi Eclipse west out of Chicago along a stretch of the Dwight Eisenhower Interstate Highway System known as the Ronald Reagan Toll Way, looking for a Richard Nixon pit stop when I see a sign for the DeKalb Oasis. Northern Illinois has the kind of landscape that really, really needs an oasis, so I pull in with great expectations.
In this part of the world, an oasis is a place where drivers can stop to refuel without exiting the toll road, and this mini-mall offers an exemplary collection of restorative pleasures: $5 massages from a vibrating chair; Awberry-Go-Go smoothies from the Tropicana stand; free Kung Pao chicken samples handed out by fresh-faced kids working the Panda Express counter; and $3 Illinois lottery tickets dispensed from a vending machine.
Instead, I gamble on a $1.89 McDonald's cinnamon melt, new to this area, which turns out to be a doughy, runny, 220-calorie mess that's beneath the chain's standards and isn't going to make people forget about Cinnabon franchises (whose smell may be the sole saving grace of modern airports). I fill up on $3.39-a-gallon gas — Kerouac's characters stole from gas stations, and now the trend is reversed — and push onward.
* * * * *
Just off Highway 61 in Fort Madison, Iowa, looms an odd tableau that could be described as surrealistic except that I think surrealism is illegal in Iowa. On the left, heading south, stands the formidable Iowa State Penitentiary maximum-security prison, where the stone walls are adorned with guard-tower turrets. And right outside, almost at the base of the wall, sits the Putt-A-Round ice cream stand and miniature golf course. Lord knows what the setting does to your handicap. The lady who serves my strawberry cone says she feels perfectly safe because of the 24-hour surveillance, though she notes that a few years ago, a couple of guys got over the wall using ropes and grappling hooks. The lure of sugar cones must bring out the worst (or best) in some people.
Monday
Before me was the great raw bulge and bulk of my American continent. — On the Road
Here in Kansas City come roses, roasted meats, Bass Pro shops, cherished friends, saloons where you can smoke, an underground edginess, plentiful parking spaces and tree blossoms falling onto young women who sport bare midriffs and stoners who brag of skateboarding while drunk.
I could move here.
Tuesday
I felt like a million dollars. I was adventuring in the crazy American night. — On the Road
As I head toward that Midwestern musical mecca of Branson, Mo., the billboards tell me that Charo and Andy Williams aren't appearing until a week later, so I speed by and plunge into the Ozarks. Soon I see signs for shops that sell rocks.
* * * * *
TV ads for Holiday Inn Express try to sell the notion that if you sleep there, you'll feel good enough to go out and save the world. They've got it backward: Their rooms are ideal for hiding out from the world. I like to check in and sleep and sleep until the maids roust me the next morning. For about $85 a night, I get most things a traveler needs: a personal coffee machine with Smart Roast packets, wi-fi, a rain shower head and a TV with a low-tech remote so you can get right to CNN or Sorority Sex Sluts on pay-per-view for $10.99. They'll even do your laundry for $4.40 a shirt or $1.30 a panty.
Granted, they could stop hanging the towels precariously over the toilet bowl, but overall, I couldn't be much happier in North Little Rock, than I am in Room 413. Sure beats the barns, cars, buses and coldwater flats where Kerouac's characters crashed.
Wednesday
Somebody passed a bottle of rotgut, the bottom of it. I took a big swig in the wild, lyrical, drizzling air … "Whooee, here we go!" yelled a kid in a baseball cap. — On the Road
I came along too late to see the medicine shows that used to travel the country, but I find a descendant at the massive Petro truck stop in North Little Rock along I-40. At the Trucker's Choice Wellness Center booth, Gary Matson pitches an array of nutritional supplements, anti-aging pills, immunity boosters and energy-boosting formulas that cost about $30 a pop.
"Truckers are becoming more concerned with their health," he says. "More are starting to wonder what's happening to them and what they can do about it. They didn't used to ask."
I try a free sample of his best-selling Turbo Power Energy Booster Adult Multi-Vitamin and Trace Mineral Liquid. It's thick and a vile orange-brown color and tastes like liquefied Flintstones vitamins. "The guys can tell it's doing something for them," Matson says. "Gives them a quick boost."
As I prepare to sprint away, he gives me free packets of a green gel that's supposed to relieve any aches I might get in my knees.
Saturday
… In their eyes I would be strange and ragged and like the Prophet who has walked across the land to bring the dark Word, and the only Word I had was "Wow!" — On the Road
Normally I crave Memphis' rough charms, but two days in a lousy hotel and newspapers filled with stories of a murderous preacher's wife put me in a foul mood that I can't shake. Where is that joyous jolt I used to get from my now-raggedy paperback? Why do the pathetic parts seem so much more prominent than when I read the book in my 20s? Perhaps I've seen too much of a country grown stale. I'm relieved to say goodbye and head to Nashville, the end of my road.
On the way, I tune in to a sermon on the radio where the message is drenched in blood, and the minister stretches "Jesus" to five syllables.
* * * * *
While cruising Nashville's country music bars along Broadway, I come across Mike Slusser, who has played the mandolin for tips on the streets for nine years and makes about $7 an hour on a good day. What makes me stop is his plaintive version of the box-car anthem City of New Orleans, my favorite road (train-track, actually) song.
He, too, laments how we've been overtaken by a bland suburban culture that "anesthetizes people." But he believes the cure for that is to keep taking to the road, just as Kerouac's characters did. "You can still feel the history and the land itself through the romance of travel," he says. "The mountains and oceans are still powerful images, and when you travel out of your comfort zone, it expands your mind and gives you a new appreciation for things."
Sunday
I was rushing through the world without a chance to see it. — On the Road
On the flight back to New York, I lament how I've been too focused on the mechanics and Meaning of the journey, a meaning that still eludes me. Like On the Road's wanderers, I should have just let it happen and looked closer. Will I ever get over the guilt of bypassing Fair Play, Mo.? Maybe they had a turnabout there. Why didn't it dawn on me to turn onto New Era Road back there in eastern Iowa? Did Elope Road connect to Eternity Drive in Pindall, Ark.? What social customs would I have observed at Toad Suck Park and Bucksnort, Tenn.?
Those are questions for another time on the road.
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