The First Third (Neal Cassady)

For a time I held a unique position: among the hundreds of isolated creatures who haunted the streets of lower downtown Denver there was not one so young as myself. Of these dreary men who had commited themselves, each for his own good reason, to the task of finishing thier days as pennyless drunkards, I alone, as the sharer of their way of life, presented a replica of childhood to which their vision could daily turn, and in being thus grafted onto them, I became the unnatural son of a few score beaten men.

It was my experience to be constantly meeting new cronies of my father's who invariably introduced me with a proud, "This is my boy." Whereupon the pat on my head was usually followed by the quizzical look the eye reserved for uncertainty, which here conveyed the question " Shall I give him a little drink?" Sensing the offer, backed by a half-extended bottle, my father would always say "You'll have to ask him," and I would coyly answer, "No thank you, sir."