On the Road: Part 4, Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

Sal made some money from selling his book and, when spring came, he felt the need to go. He decided to leave New York without Dean, who was working at a parking garage and living with Inez. Sal realized that he was doing with Inez exactly the same thing that he had done with Camille. Oddly, Inez and Camille talked on the phone often about “Dean’s eccentricities.”

One night, Sal and Dean were talking and Dean said it wouldn’t be so bad if they ended up as bums together. Dean mentioned that he had gotten in touch with his father, who was in jail in Seattle. He had plans to get his father an apartment in New York when he got out.

One afternoon, Dean and Sal played baseball and basketball outside with some younger kids, who easily beat them. They had dinner at Sal’s aunt’s house and Dean paid Sal’s aunt back for the speeding ticket she had paid for so long ago.

Sal told Dean that he hoped they’d grow old together with their families, living on the same street, and Dean agreed. Dean told Sal that Ed and Galatea had gotten back together. Dean and Sal look over some pictures of themselves and their friends and Sal realized that their kids would see these pictures and think that they “had lived smooth, well-ordered, stabilized-within-the-photo lives.”