KEROUAC, Jack (1922-1969). Autograph letter signed (“Jack”) to Ed White, 28 April 1966. Unpublished.

Octavo. Single leaf of lined paper torn from spiral notebook; both sides; pencil. With envelope addressed in autograph, postmarked Hyannis, Massachusetts.

"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”

An apology for missing a phone call from White. A spontaneous call to Kerouac from a local nightspot seemed a wonderful idea to White and his wife Anne one April night in 1966. There were telephones at hand, and their dinner group of four was enjoying a pre-supper cocktail and talking, somehow, about Kerouac. Jack answered. Anne said a few words to him and called White to talk – but by the time he put the receiver to his ear no one was on the other end. After a few valiant efforts to solicit a reply, he hung up. Jack immediately penciled this apologetic note to explain his absence, confessing he’d made a run for the bathroom – “When your phone call rang this night I already needed to relieve myself of a Bom-load of liquid – I squirmed while talking, but when Anne said she’d hold up the phone for me to hear the band, I rushed to the bathroom.” He promises that if he was paid to go to Rome in May, his return trip would be “Rome – NY – Denver, see you, then back to Boston.” Then, a striking conclusion: “Meanwhile, when thinking your inward thoughts in your chair, realize that I do the same – what caverns around the eyes of both of us…Hic calix, Jack.”