How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #19
Dean and I sat alone in the back seat and left it up to them and talked. "Now, man, that alto man last night had IT - he held it once he found it; I’ve never seen a guy who could hold so long." I wanted to know what "IT" meant. "Ah well" - Dean laughed - "now you’re asking me impon-de-rables - ahem! Here’s a guy and everybody’s there, right? Up to him to put down what’s on everybody’s mind. He starts the first chorus, then lines up his ideas, people, yeah, yeah, but get it, and then he rises to his fate and has to blow equal to it. All of a sudden somewhere in the middle of the chorus he gets it - everybody looks up and knows; they listen; he picks it up and carries. Time stops. He’s filling empty space with the substance of our lives, confessions of his bellybottom strain, remembrance of ideas, rehashes of old blowing. He has to blow across bridges and come back and do it with such infinite feeling soul-exploratory for the tune of the moment that everybody knows it’s not the tune that counts but IT -" Dean could go no further; he was sweating telling about it. (III.5.1)
Why does Dean refuse to tell Sal what "IT" is? The question becomes a game to them, like a Zen master who insists his student must answer a koan for himself.
Quote #20
"Oh, man! man! man!" moaned Dean. "And it’s not even the beginning of it - and now here we are at last going east together, we’ve never gone east together, Sal, think of it, we’ll dig Denver together and see what everybody’s doing although that matters little to us, the point being that we know what IT is and we know TIME and we know that everything is really FINE." Then he whispered, clutching my sleeve, sweating, "Now you just dig them in front. They have worries, they’re counting the miles, they’re thinking about where to sleep tonight, how much money for gas, the weather, how they’ll get there - and all the time they’ll get there anyway, you see." (III.5.5)
Dean’s sense of urgency begins to give way to one of calm. Rather than fear time, Dean begins to accept it.
Quote #21
"Sal, in my young days when I used to come to this corner to steal change off the newsstand for bowery beef stew, that rough-looking cat you see out there standing had nothing but murder in his heart, got into one horrible fight after another, I remember his scars even, till now years and y-e-a-r-s of standing on the corner have finally softened him and chastened him ragely, here completely he’s become sweet and willing and patient with everybody, he’s become a fixture on the corner, you see how things happen?" (III.6.26)
Dean recognizes the extraordinary changes that time has wrought on his hometown.