Chapter VIII Tootling the Multitudes Summary and Analysis

The Merry Pranksters continue along toward New York City and develop new ways of doing their pranks. They paint one hand in Day-Glo colors and flash it as they pass by straight people. They play their instruments to go along with their impressions of straight people, their tootling of the multitudes. Cassady takes the bus over the Blue Ridge Mountains on a twisting, steep road and does not use the brakes. Kesey rides on top. Everybody is calm, because Cassady is at the wheel, and he's dependable.

They enter New York City and find it to be full of depressing straight people, whom they tootle and flash their painted hands toward. Chloe Scott of the Perry Lane crowd finds an apartment for the Merry Pranksters, and they throw a party. Jack Kerouac and...