On the Road, Journal Three

There are few instances, in On The Road, when the wild crazy events seem "out of the norm". Indeed most cases of all night parties, continuous 48 hour drives, and drug binges seem almost mundane. But, in the third segment of the book, it seems as though the partying life is finally catching up to the main characters. In fact one of the main participants, Carlo Marx, has opted out of the lifestyle, moving into upscale New York, settling down with a wife and kids. When Sal and Dean go there to meet him, they find a different man, who suddenly questions why they do things rather than, when, and what they do. Dean, sees life as one crazy trip, never ending, never standing still, for Dean if life is moving a hundred miles an hour, it's not moving at all. Sal on the other hand, runs through periods of deflation. Where he settles down for a while, only to be whisked away again by Dean, and whatever girl he happens to be in love with at the time. This time, Dean scoops up Sal, and they drive down to New Orleans to hang out with an friend, old Bull. Thing start to get crazy, through an unspecified amount of time, Sal and the gang work their way through several kinds of drugs. Including Benzedrine ( a type of stimulant) and heroine. It feels as though the mood of the memoir has started to shift. No longer is everything happy. Each trip isn't all glory and sunshine. The characters are growing odder, and more desperate at every turn, Bull takes three shots of heroine, administered throughout the day just to stay functional. The effects of such a crazy life style have started to show.