Coming into the bowl of Denver, low mountains on the horizon like a purple fence around a corral, Frank felt a bit overwhelmed.
The place was bigger and more crowded than he’d anticipated, traffic zipping and darting and roaring by him on the freeway, and his nerves were jumpy and unsettled.
He used to have nerves of steel, could piss in a Coke bottle and not miss a drop, but now he felt shaky and his flesh was like a pincushion with the pins still in it.
Haven’t been the same since that LSD excursion back in April, he thought, anxiously scanning the periphery at sixty miles an hour. And his little brother jumping off the Arrowhead Bridge and the resultant pile of shit that led to, sure as hell didn’t help much either.
And the concussion?
There was also that.
He continued along on Business 70, also known as Colfax Avenue, a street name he remembered from the book, and that felt right. Staying on Colfax, he drove by the State Capitol and the U.S. Mint and then spied one of those chain restaurants that were springing up all over the country like toadstools after a rainstorm.
He turned off the highway at the next exit and wound around to the restaurant parking lot. He went inside and found the payphone, pulled the phonebook page from his pocket and dialed up Larry Richards’ office number.
A female voice answered, Frank thinking she sounded quite young. Richards always liked the sweet young things. “Larry Richards’ law office, this is Susan, how may I help you?”
“Is Larry available?”
“Mr. Richards is busy on another line, whom should I say is calling, please?” Her voice went up an octave on the please.
“Tell him it’s an old friend from high school in Zenith, Minnesota.”
Frank heard the phone clicking and then some recorded music for a brief moment before a male voice came on the line. “Hello, Larry Richards speaking. Who’s calling, please?”
“Is this the same Larry Richards that once tried to put a Chevy engine into a 1954 Ford?”
“Yes it is,” Richards said, a chuckle coming into his voice.
“Well this is the guy whose garage you used to lift the engine out of that Impala you stole.”
Frank recalled that after failing to adapt the Chevy motor to the Ford, Richards was eventually arrested for trying to sell the stolen engine to an undercover cop.
“Frank Ford, you old cocksucker. What the hell are you doing in Denver?”
“On my way to California, Larry. Gonna look for work out there.”
“Minnesota climate finally get to you, Frank?”
“That and a few other things. But yeah, I finally decided to relocate. And being that I was in the area, I thought maybe I’d pay you a visit and have you show me a good time. For old time’s sake, you know.”
“Just great Frank, sounds super. It’s really great to hear your voice again, my friend. Let’s get together this afternoon. Once I’ve finished with this consultation, we can hit one of the many great happy hours in the area and catch up. Shit, it’s been years, I can’t believe you’re actually here.”
“It’s true, Larry, I’m actually here. Should I call you back later?”
“Why don’t you just come by my office around four-thirty? Where you at?”
“I’m on Colfax Ave, just past the Mint.”
“That’s not too far from here. If you go back the way you came for a few blocks there’s a nice park at the Civic Center I think you’ll like. Plenty of things to see. Keep you occupied until four-thirty or so, no problem. This is gonna be great, man. But, um, please be careful not to mention any of the uh—shall we say—low points of my history, around my secretary. Nobody here knows about my checkered past.”
“My lips are sealed, Larry, see you at four-thirty.”
Richards gave directions and Frank wrote them down on a scrap of paper he’d had the foresight to bring to the phone with him, Frank going all in on the travel-discipline thing.
Frank took a seat in a booth by the window. Ordered a California burger basket with fries and a Coke and wolfed the whole thing down, even though it was mediocre at best.
Seemed he had a lot of holes to fill.
After lunch Frank got in the station wagon and went to the park Richards recommended. The air was warm—on its way to eighty degrees, the sun shining and a slight breeze—and Frank felt the solace of summer slowly washing over him.
His jeans and long-sleeved chamois shirt being a little too much clothing for the weather, he took off the heavy green shirt and sat in his t-shirt on a park bench, feeling like a vagrant. He read his book and let the warmth work its magic on the tension in his neck and shoulders. But the relaxation didn’t last long. That rogue nervous energy kicked in and made it hard to stay put, so he got up and sauntered around the bustling park.
Found it quite scenic.
Plenty of pretty girls.
But the time passed more slowly than he was comfortable with and around three-thirty he decided to rumble on down towards Larry Richard’s office with the intent of stopping at a bar along the way, if any place caught his eye.
He motored his way around the city. Seeing the sign for Larimer Street, another familiar name from the book, he made the turn and was soon swinging into what seemed to be a rare parking space near an establishment called Jimmy’s Saloon and Eatery.
Jimmy’s was a few steps above the old Metropole on the cleanliness scale. Definitely lacked the embedded stink of Frank’s former place of work. Shit, there were still times when Frank swore he could smell the old bar on him, like the stench had burrowed under his skin and stayed there.
Ten years he’d spent in that hole. And a clean bar with new furnishings and walls that didn’t have years of caked-on grime was a pleasant experience.
Instead of dirt on the walls, there were framed black and white photos of the early days of Denver—rodeos and miners and railroad scenes—but Jimmy’s definitely lacked the character of the bars of Larimer Street Kerouac wrote about.
But that was all right withFrank.
He was remembering the teenage Larry Richards, the guy a real piece of work. Probably the only miscreant in the history of Zenith, Minnesota, who served a jail term under the Huber Law (work release for employed prisoners) and got out every afternoon to practice tennis.
And weekends to play in tournaments.
Richards, then a recent high school graduate, had accepted a tennis scholarship to Arizona State University, and the judge allowed this unusual Huber Law arrangement so as not to ruin the young man’s opportunity because of one youthful mistake.
At least the only one the cops knew about.
Ah, the leniency that was the past, Frank thought. And it sure helped that Larry’s parents were well-off professionals from the prosperous East End of Zenith.
Frank knew he’d never have received that kind of break.
But Richards never put on any airs; he just accepted his good fortune and went off to ASU in the fall like a good little car thief.
And that thought brought to mind another parallel from the book.
Dean Moriarty had spent a part of his juvenile years incarcerated for stealing cars, and was quite infamous in the Denver area for this trait. So maybe there were more similarities between Larry Richards and Moriarty than Frank had originally thought.
(To be continued)
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