quieter, more radiant, more patient, manly, more friendly even—And tho the wild frenzies of his old road days with me have banked down he still has the same taut eager face and supple muscles and looks like he’s ready to go anytime—But actually loves his home (paid for by railroad insurance when he broke his leg trying to stop a boxcar from crashing), loves his wife in a way tho they fight some, loves his kids and especially his little son Timmy John partly named after me—Poor old, good old Cody sittin there with his chess set, wants immediately to challenge somebody to a chess game but only has an hour to talk to us before he goes to work supporting the family by rushing out and pushing his Nash Rambler down the quiet Los Gatos suburb street, jumping in, starting the motor, in fact his only complaint is that the Nash wont start without a push—No bitter complaints about society whatever from this grand and ideal man who really loves me moreover as if I deserved it, but I'm bursting to explain everything to him, not even Big Sur but the past several years, but there’s no chance with everybody yakking—And in fact I can see in Cody’s eyes that he can see in my own eyes the regret we both feel that recently we havent had chances to talk whatever, like we used to do driving across America and back in the old road days, too many people now want to talk to us and tell us their stories, we’ve been hemmed in and surrounded and outnumbered—The circle’s closed in on the old heroes of the night—But he says “However you guys, come on down round ’bout one when the boss leaves and watch me work and keep me company awhile before you go back to the City"—I can see Dave Wain really loves him at once, and Stanley Popovich too who's come along on this trip just to meet the fabled “Dean Moriarty”—The name I give Cody in “On the Road”—But O, it breaks my heart to see he’s lost his beloved job on the railroad and after all the seniority he'd piled up since 1948 and now is reduced to tire recapping and dreary parole visits—All for two sticks of wild loco weed that grows by itself in Texas because God wanted it—
