- Sal is heading home in October because, as he says, that’s the time to go home.
- He gets to Mississippi and makes out with a random woman for a few hours on a bus.
- Sal has no money. Actually, he has a dime, which in Sal’s mind is about three shots.
- Sal meets "The Ghost of the Susquehanna," an old man, and they become bums together.
- This little old man is quite probably mentally unstable.
- Sal recognizes that there is wilderness in the East, too, not just the West. Whatever that means.
- Sal is feeling the Blues, and also listening to them periodically in train stations before he gets thrown out for being a bum.
- Sal realizes he is very quickly beginning to starve. He hitches a ride with a man who turns out (and this is awesome) to be a guy who believes in controlled starvation for the sake of health. HA!
- All of a sudden Sal is back in Times Square, wanting to pick up a long cigarette butt off the ground.
- But he’s still not home, so he panhandles for some bus money.
- While Sal was on the way home, Dean was staying with Sal’s Aunt, waiting for him. But Dean left two days before Sal got there, to go back to San Francisco and Camille. Brutal. Sounds like a good time to end Part I.