Pennies and Dimes: Two remarkable journeys without any!
and judgmental character. He can find fault with people as fast as he can flatter them, and is time and again ungrateful for the favours extended him.
He too battles with his own paranoia, ascribing it to tiredness, to good dope, or simply justifying or dismissing it as he confesses fears of being murdered by some innocent benefactor - a gruff truck driver for example simply because he's pulled over on a quiet highway for a lunch break and doesn't have much to say.
He rides the standard "I'm much better than those people who use travel guides" line of thinking and expresses it time and again in no uncertain terms. "... the fat-walleted fuckers should stay at home" he says. He's obsessed with dope, discovered the inner meaning of techno music through LSD, and can't get women off his mind, but none of that stops him seeing through himself and displaying some wonderful cultural sensitivity and understanding at times. (c.f. Jaime Salazar, for a similar trip without the sensitivity!)
Still, he's not quite as penniless as Mike, he accepts money as gifts, he rides through most Romania and Bulgaria on trains, and most of Turkey and Iran on busses, and even has a travellers cheque stashed on him for that Indian visa he needs on the way (a necessity with which Mike admittedly never needed to grapple). He's also not as discrete or modest about it, often carrying a postcard with his spiritual cash-less mission explained in the local tongue, to solicit offers of support. He's certainly pragmatic about capitalising on his star status. (c.f. Tony Hawks, who was even worse!).
Relaxing in the Indian Himalayas, not far from his goal, he reflects rather sadly: "In truth, I was tired of who I'd become as my whole trip had backfired on me ..." already in Pakistan he noticed "there was nothing glamorous about this whole trek. I now knew it was possible to get from A to B without any money - so what? This trip now seemed to be proving something to everyone but myself but it was me alone who was having to endure it. I felt like I'd been given a ticket for the wrong show."
Well, Tom may think that Kerouac was thinking of Beatific visions when he coined the term, but Kerouac himself confessed it was because he was feeling beaten, and so in his own way
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