On the Road: Part 3, Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

As they continued driving, Dean and Sal admired the car. Dean said that with this car they could drive all the way to the southern tip of South America. They were both excited for Chicago. Dean told Sal about some of his past run-ins with the law and mentioned his alcoholic father. He told the story of when he first saw Marylou at a soda fountain in Denver (she was fifteen).

Dean drove past some hobos on the side of the road and thought if his father might be among them. They saw a man driving a Buick and raced him until the man gave up and pulled into a gas station. They drove on, with Dean speeding and weaving in and out of traffic dangerously. Dean rear-ended another car in a minor accident.

Later on, Dean got pulled over by a policeman, who said the man they rear-ended claimed that he had been hit by someone driving a stolen car. Dean drove to the police station, where they verified that Dean was a hired driver.

Back on the road, Dean continued driving dangerously until they pulled into Chicago, looking like “a new California gang come to contest the spoils of Chicago, a band of desperados escaped from the prisons of the Utah moon.” Sal calculated that Dean drove at an average of 70 miles per hour the whole way.