by Sam Hamill, originally published in the Chicago Review, Autumn 2006
I write for one and only one purpose, to overcome the invincible ignorance of the traduced heart. […]! wish to speak to and for those who have had enough of the Social lie, the Economics of Mass Murder, the
Sexual Hoax, and the Domestication of Conspicuous Consumption.
-Kenneth Rexroth
In 1959, I was hip. On the Road had put me on the road a couple of years earlier, when I was fourteen and caught a freight train bound for who-knows-where. It was leaving Utah, and that was good enough for me. I huddled in an empty cattle car and smoked Lucky Strikes and peeked between the wooden slats as the vast salt desert clanged by. Hours after dark, I got off in Reno, where I scraped most of the skin from one arm and knee and broke my nose by jumping too soon-assover-teakettle into the gravel and railroad ties. A couple of hours later I was in the back seat of a squad car bound for detention, where I sat for several days before being put on a Greyhound bus back to Salt Lake City, to be greeted by irate foster parents. I was cool.
I hot-wired cars, hopped trains, hitchhiked, and visited detention centers or jails in most of the surrounding states over the next year.
