So I’m not a talented cat. I can’t act and I can’t paint and I can’t write. No sense fooling myself. I’m no artist. So pretty soon I’ll be selling insurance in Yonkers. I’ll find some chick and get married and buy a house and sell insurance to people who don’t want to buy it. I mean, what the hell, there’s nothing else I’m keyed up to do. So the old man has a good thing going and I’ll go into it.” He shrugged. “And in the meantime I might as well bounce around a little. The papers call me a beatnik. The cops don’t like me. The people around here stare at me like I have gonorrhea or something. I’m not hurting anybody. I stay nice and quiet and don’t get in anybody’s way. I’m just having a little fun. I figure it’s not going to be any big gas selling insurance, and I’ll be selling insurance for a hell of a long time, and after that I’ll be dead. And that will be for an even longer time. So the Zen kick and the beat kick are just something to do first. Make sense?
Lennie Schwerner