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Starting Point-Patterson, New Jersey
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Sal meets Dean
"With the coming of Dean Moriart began the part of my life you could call my life on the road" (pg.1). -
Sal gets a ride on a flatbed truck all the way to Wyoming.
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Sal arrives in Denver for the first time.
"It was beautiful in Longmont...And here I am in Colorado! I kept thinking gleefully. Damn! Damn! Damn! Im making it!" (pg.2). -
Sal gets on the bus to San Fransisco, and arrives in Mill City.
"It was, so they say, the only community in America where whites and Negroes lived together voluntarily; and that was so, and so wild and joyous a place Ive never seen since" (pg 61). -
Sal gets a job with Remi
"He arranged to get me the same kind of job he had, as a guard in the barracks. I went through the necessary routine, and to my surprise the bastards hired me" (pg 64). -
Sal meets Terry on the bus
"And before I knew what I was doing I leaned across the aisle to her (she was trying to sleep on the seat) and said, 'Miss, would you like to use my raincoar for a pillow'" (pg 82). -
All good things must end...Sal leaves for home...
"She was supposed to drive to New York in a month with her brother. But we both knew she wouldnt make it" (pg 101). -
Christmas with the family.
Sal ends up in Testament, Virginia with his family. "At Christmas 1948 my aunt and I went down to visit my brother in Virginia, laden with presents" (109). -
Dean meets up with Sal, and they're off.
"As I realized when we got back into the house and I saw the Christmas tree, the presents, and smelled the roasting turkey and listened to the talk of the relatives, but now the bug was on me again, and the bug's name was Dean Moriarty and I was off on another spurt around the road" (115). -
Sal loses Lucille
dont conform to society like the intern!
"She wanted me to be her way...Lucille would never understand me because I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion" (126). -
Off to New Orleans.
"Poor Bull came home in his Texas Chevy and found his house invaded by maniacs; but he greeted me with a nice warmth I hadnt seen in him for a long time"(142). -
Dean makes his life more complicated.
"He giggled maniacally and didnt care; he rubbed his fly, stuck his finger in Maylou's dress, slurped up her knee, frothed at the mouth, and said, 'darling, you know and I know that everything is straight between us at last beyond the furthest abstract definition in metaphysical terms or any terms you want to specify or sweetly impose or harken back..."(155). -
Dean changes his mind.
"Suddenly Dean was saying good-by. He was bursting to see Camille and find out what had happened. Marylou and I stood dumbl in the street and watched him drive away" (170). -
Sal is fed up.
"At dawn I got my New York bus and said good-by to Dean and Marylou. They wanted some of my sandwiches. I told them no. It was a sullen moment. We were all thinking we'd never see on another again and we didn't care" (178). -
Sal goes back to Dean.
"My arrival was somewhat like the coming of the strange most evil angel in the home of the snow-white fleece, as Dean and I began talking excitedly in the kitchen downstairs, which brought forth sobs from upstairs" (183). -
Dean goes off the deep end. Turning point for Sal.
"I tried to remember everything he'd done in his life and if there wasn't something back there to make him suspicious of something now" (189). -
In Denver, Dean and Sal get hired to take a limo across country.
"The college boys thanked Wall graciously and we were off again. I turned to watch the kitchen light recede in the sea of night. Then I leaned ahead" (230).
Sal looks to the future instead of everything he has left behind him. -
Deans life is coming undone, and Sal knows it.
"Not only that, but a few months later Camille gave birth to Dean's second baby, the result of a few nights' rapport early in the year. With one illegitimate child in the West somewhere, Dean then had four little ones and not a cent, and was al troubles and ecstasy and speed as ever. So we didn't go to Italy" (248). -
Sal gets things together.
"So I went. For the first time in our lives I said good-by to Dean in New York and left him there" (249). -
Everyone ends up in Denver, and plan to get to Mexico.
"And Denver receded back of us like the city of salt, her smokes breaking up in the air and dissolving to our sight" (267). -
Mexico it is.
They drive down through Texas, and into Mexico. Their goal is to get to Mexico City, but they have to stop in several places before they get there. First they meet a friendly little guy who gave them drugs, and showed them the nearest whore-house. On the road again, they get to a very small town, where they try to sleep. It is very hot, because they passed through a very buggy jungle, and because of this they have a hard time sleeping. -
Dean bails.
Sal gets very sick in Mexico City, and ends up unconcious for a few days. Once he wakes up, Dean is saying goodbye. After Sal thought it was a joke, and went back to sleep, he woke up, and realized that Dean was actually gone. -
Sal decides that Dean can handle himself, alone.
Sal finds a girl he finally wants to settle down with. Dean decides to come up to New York to move them out to California, when nobody has any money. Sal goes to a concert with his real friends, and leaves Dean on the street. This is the final goodbye.
