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On the Road Part 3, Chapter 6 Summary

  • Dean and Sal play games involving peeing in different urinals.
  • They get in a small tiff! Sal is ridiculously defensive about the fact that he’s five years older than Dean. Then Dean gets all puppy-dog hurt because Sal got mad.
  • This is important. Sal feels horribly guilty that he made Dean upset, but instead of apologizing he becomes more and more of a jerk, saying the most hurtful things possible. Dean says he was crying, and to hurt him, Sal won’t believe him.
  • Eventually Sal breaks down and apologizes.
  • They go to stay with a family that was Sal’s neighbor when he lived alone in Denver.
  • Sal has to warn Dean to stay away from the family’s little girl.
  • The mother of this family says that Dean, in his craziness, reminds her of the husband that ran off on them. Uh-oh.
  • Dean wants to help the mother (Frankie) buy a car so that he can borrow it to go pick up high school girls.
  • Dean gets so upset at Frankie’s hesitation to buy a car that he flips out and keeps saying – in italics, mind you – that she’s just like his father.
  • Dean finds out that his father may be in New England.
  • Dean’s all pumped up to see his cousin, Sam Brady, who apparently is to Dean what Dean is to Sal (hero that taught him about alcohol, drugs, and women).
  • Dean wants this cousin to help him remember his childhood.
  • Dean wants to find Marylou.
  • Dean finds a man who used to be tough, but is now harmless and permanently attached to the street corner.
  • Dean’s hero, Sam, has found religion and given up alcohol. Then he drops the bombshell: their family wants nothing to do with Dean’s father, or with Dean. Ouch.
  • Dean gets the hots for a short Mexican girl, and he and Sal follow her around without ever actually talking to her.
  • Sal again has to protect Frankie’s daughter, Janet, from a sex-crazed Dean.