Chapter 9 Summary

In Chapter nine, as if a switch has been flipped, there comes what Kerouac calls the first signpost of his coming insanity. He is sitting by the sea and breathes a deep sigh, and as if some poison breath of iodine has entered him, he becomes instantly sure that the sea doesn't want him here, and all his time sitting and listening to it has been wasted. He hears it telling him to go to his desire and not to hang around there. The conviction that he is unwanted by the sea remains in him for every return visit.

He resolves to go back to San Francisco and so spreads out all of the food he has left for his animal friends. He makes a decision before he goes that will affect him more deeply than he ever imagines at the time, to...