The Dharma Bums [antikvár]

Hopping a freight out of Los Angeles at high noon one day in late September 1955 I got on a gondola and lay down with my duffel bag under my head and my knees crossed and contemplated nhe clouds as we rolled north to Santa Barbara. It was a local and I iDtended to sleep on the beach at Santa Barbara that night and catch either another local to San Luis Obispo the next morning or the firstclass frei^t all the way to San Francisco at seven p.m. Somewhere near Camarillo where Charlie Parker'd been mad and relaxed back to normal health, a thin old little bum climbed into my gondola as we headed into a siding to give a train right of way and looked surprised to see me there. He established himself at the other end of the gondola and lay down, facing me, with his head on his own miserably small pack and said nothing. By and by they blew the highball whistle after the eastbound freight had smashed through on the main line and we pulled out as the air got colder and fog began to blow from the sea over the warm valleys of the coast. Both the little bum and I, ^er unsuccessful attempts to huddle on the cold steel m wraparounds, got up and paced back and forth and jumped and flapped arms at each our end of the gon.