How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #40
It was with a great deal of silly relief that these people let us off the car at the corner of 27th and Federal. Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life. (III.5.12)
Just as Dean’s madness progresses, Sal’s vision of the importance of the road grows and blossoms. Eventually, he defines all of life by his travels on the road.
Quote #41
Horrible nauseas possessed us in the morning. First thing Dean did was go out across the cornfield to see if the car would carry us East. I told him no, but he went anyway. He came back pale. "Man, that’s a detective’s car and every precinct in town knows my fingerprints from the year that I stole five hundred cars. You see what I do with them, I just wanta ride, man! I gotta go! Listen, we’re going to wind up in jail if we don’t get out of here this very instant." (III.8.1)
While Sal’s travels across the country are rooted in his personal goals, Dean’s travels become an escape from the law.
Quote #42
The faster we left Denver the better I felt, and we were doing it fast. It grew dark when we turned off the highway at Junction and hit a dirt road that took us across dismal East Colorado plains to Ed Wall’s ranch in the middle of Coyote Nowhere. But it was still raining and the mud was slippery and Dean slowed to seventy, but I told him to slow even more or we’d slide, and he said, "Don’t worry, man, you know me."
"Not this time," I said. "You’re really going much too fast." And he was flying along there on that slippery mud and just as I said that we hit a complete left turn in the highway and Dean socked the wheel over to make it but the big car skidded in the grease and wobbled hugely. (III.8.11, III.8.12)
The wavering of the car suggests that something is off-balance in Dean. As the new flower of his madness continues to grow, Sal’s subconscious concern for Dean's wellbeing increases.