The 10th book on my Kerouac bookshelf is Jack Kerouac's Lonesome Traveler (Grove Weidenfeld, 1989), and the 10th sentence (in honor of today being the 10th day of the month) is:
More reasons than one for the meeting in Pedro--he'd sent a gun ahead inside of a book which he'd carefully cut and hollowed out and made into a tight neat package covered with brown paper and tied with string, addressed to a girl in Hollywood, Helen something, with address which he gave me, "Now Kerouac when you get to Hollywood you go immediately to Helen's and ask her for that package I sent her, then you carefully open it in your hotel room and there's the gun and it's loaded so be careful dont [sic] shoot your finger off, then you put it in your pocket, do you hear me Kerouac, has it gotten into your heskefuffle frantic imagination--but now you've got a little errand to do for me, for your boy Denny Blue, remember we went to school together, we thought up ways to survive together to scrounge for pennies we were even cops together we even married the same woman," (cough) "I mean,--we both wanted the same woman, Kerouac, it's up to you now to help defend me against the evil of Matthew Peters, you bring that gun with you" poking me and emphatically pronouncing each word "and bring it on you and dont [sic] get caught and dont [sic] miss the boat whatever you do." (p. 4)
That's not the longest sentence Jack ever wrote, but like the song says, it sure is long.
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