On the Road

In Mill City, Sal visits the house of an old friend named Remi Boncoeur. The house, which is more of a shack, is in the housing projects that litter the outskirts of San Francisco. Sal stays with Remi and his girlfriend, a woman named Lee Ann. Remi and Lee Ann argue constantly. When Sal arrives, he’s bursting with writing ideas. He tells Remi about a screenplay he wants to write and sell to the Hollywood studios. In the meantime, he takes a job as a guard at the same living facility for overseas workers where Remi works. Sal is no good at the job, and the construction workers are loud and boisterous. Sal cannot control them and, as he tries to quieten the men one evening, he instead drinks with them into the early morning hours. The other guards are hard, tough “men with cop-souls” (40). They do not approve of Remi and Sal, who steal groceries from the cafeteria whenever they work the same shift because they have so little money. Remi has plenty of ideas to overcome their relative poverty. He suggests that they take a rowboat out to an old rusty ship in the bay. Sal, Remi, and Lee Ann have a picnic on the boat and lay in the sun.