I found this written on a couple pieces of binder paper, floating around in my room.

When I turned 18, for my birthday, Hannah Fletcher

gave me a white tee shirt.

She had bought it at Goodwill and, with an iron-on patch, put the words

"I Am Kerouac" across the front

No, it must have been Christmas, not my birthday.

I pulled it out of the bag and turned it around to read

"our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life."

I must have thanked her and I must have kissed her but

none of that is the important part.

The road is life. I am Kerouac.

the shirt said what I had been thinking for months,

reading and re-reading On The Road on the back of

buses and scribbling little poems on San Francisco park benches

making sure everyone saw how much of a writer I was

how much of a traveler

how much I as just like Jackie

and now I had a shirt to prove it.

I unrolled my little sleeping bag on the beach, beneath the stars

I smoked my cigarettes by the train tracks

I followed him step by step, page by page

in fact, chasing

until the next Christmas

when I saw Hannah Fletcher again.

this time there were no kisses, but by some random

act of coincidence I was wearing the shirt

I AM KEROUAC.

I had three shots of whiskey and maybe a half-liter

of wine before we even got there.

Three hours later someone saw me walk out with a

full bottle of Wild Turkey.

I can't remember what I did on the beach

for three hours.

but when I came back the bottle was empty.

I only stayed in Australia for eleven days.

and when I got back, sick and disgusted and not

knowing why I had ever gone at all

the shirt was at the bottom of my hamper

permanently stained with dirt and wine and whisky

and I didn't believe what it said anymore.