“Florida is the hottest city in the USA”, yaps a hobo with a flawed geographical knowledge. He rolls a cigarette and sits down on a bench. The rest of his gang follows his example. They all take out their shag tobacco and cheap supermarket lager and continue to cackle loudly. High above, someone must be nodding approvingly. For we are not in Florida at all, but in Jack Kerouac Park in Lowell, Massachusetts. Fragments from Kerouac’s novels and poems can be read on colossal memorial stones. Together with the hobo benches, these stones form a mandala, referring to his flirts with Buddhism.
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