On the Road: Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary & Analysis

The next morning, Sal slipped out the window of Remi’s shack while Remi and Lee Ann were still sleeping. Sal realized that he never ended up spending a night on the abandoned ship in the bay. He hitchhiked south past towns with “magic names,” and inhaled “deep breaths of the fragrant air.”

After more hitchhiking, Sal found himself in Bakersfield, and went to the bus station to catch a bus to Los Angeles. He saw “the cutest little Mexican girl,” whose “little flanks looked delicious,” and she ended up getting on the same bus as Sal, bound for L.A. Sal sat next to her and worked up the courage to talk to her.

Sal and the “Mexican girl” traded their stories. She had left her abusive husband and was going to L.A. to live with her sister. She had left her son with her brother. Before long, Sal and the girl were holding hands and he was leaning his head on her shoulder. Sal says that there was an unspoken agreement that “when I got my hotel room in LA she would be beside me.”

When the bus arrived in L.A., Sal started to worry that Teresa (the Mexican girl, whose name he now happens to mention) was a hustler who took advantage of guys like him taking buses to L.A. Sal and Teresa got breakfast and then went to a hotel.

Sal mentioned a friend of his in New York, a six-foot redhead named Dorie, and Teresa thought that this was a Madame and Sal was a pimp. The two argued and Sal called her “a dumb little Mexican wench.” He told her to leave, but Teresa decided that Sal actually wasn’t a pimp, so she stayed. They had sex and slept until the late afternoon.