randomWalks

Remotion by Stuart Cormie.

I recount that last part to her -- Delicate and clean, she sits sipping coffee from a chintzy cup -- After an age, the hand holding it starts to shake and I watch tears form at the corners of her brown alive eyes -- "How the hell did you find out?" Ma whispers and before I even start to try to explain she tells me that it is true I am indeed Kerouac's son (she being 'Kathleen' but in reality Catherine) and that (to complete the tale) as soon as Jack discovers she is with-child he disappears never (by her) to be seen again -- And Ma is left alone to raise me eventually meeting Karl whom I always assumed was my real dad but who clearly isn't (and he's no longer around either).

I wonder then what Jack would have made of a son like me -- a boy so ... straight -- and the man he became, so responsible (until now that is) -- his very antithesis -- Shamed, probably, by my lack of resolve.