Columbia University graduate and Denver lawyer and high school guidance counselor, Justin W. Brierly – or Denver D. Doll (as he’s portrayed in Jack Kerouac’s On The Road) – played an instrumental role in the foundation of the Beat Generation of writers, having been the link of introduction in 1946 of Columbia students Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg to his ward, a seemingly incorrigible pansexual car thief named Neal Cassady. Kerouac was already a Thomas Wolfe fan with a gloomy Catholicism to his makeup, Ginsberg was dealing with a mother gone mad and hearing William Blake’s voice, but it was in their meeting Cassady that both writers found their defining bursts of inspiration. Neal Cassady is called Dean Moriarty in Kerouac’s On The Road, and Ginsberg’s first big poem Howl is dedicated to him. Having inspired these two first great Beat works, he is in effect responsible for the creative impulse we know still by that name.According to Wikipedia, Brierly, “apparently a closeted homosexual, is also believed to have been responsible for Cassady’s first homosexual experience.” I always figured something like that had to be going on, considering Kerouac’s calling him, “Denver D. Doll” in the published version of On The Road, and the jealoustone of the lovesick Ginsberg’s name for his rival for Cassady’s affections during their brief time together in Denver sharing an apartment underneath what is now Charlie Brown’s Bar and Grill on 9th and Grant – he called Brierly “Dancingmaster Death”. Kerouac also included references to Brierly in his book on Neal, Visions of Cody as “Justin G. Mannerly,” and in his Book of Dreams as “Manley Mannerly”. Brierly was apparently a major figure in their first associations, and while Denver D. Doll is a non essential character to the published version of On The Road Justin W. Brierly is a far more consequential player in the unexpurgated Original Scroll published by the Kerouac Estate in 2007.
Brierly wrote early articles promoting Kerouac’s first couple of books, and organized a book signing for him in Denver. Nevertheless, Kerouac saw fit to satirize him somewhat mercilessly, ultimately causing his publisher to request Kerouac trim the references for fear of a lawsuit from the respectable Brierly, at that time a member of Denver high society. Hence, Denver D. Doll’s toylike, incidental quality in the published version of On The Road and his fuller depiction in the Original Scroll. Brierly helped direct the Central City Opera House Association from 1937 to 1948. A trustee of Colorado Outward Bound School, he was also a board member of the American Council of Émigrés in the Professions, and served as adviser to the Institute of International Education board. As regards Brierly’s career in law, he served as an assistant to the president of Colorado Women’s College after retiring from his position as a guidance counselor for DPS at locations including East High, where he met Cassady. In 1the year 1978 Mr. Brierly donated a stained glass window from the Tears McFarlane House in the Cheesman Park neighborhood 80203 to the City and County of Denver after the mansion had been purchased for use as the Community Center. He died in Denver in April 1985, at the age of 79. His Rocky Mountain News obituaryreferred to him as “one of Denver’s most distinguished educators”. I was thirteen years old in 1985, and my family had just moved to Denver. My big Beat craze phase lasted from 15 to 18 or so. I don’t remember hearing about Brierly’s death when it happened, and might not have cared if I had, being not yet Beat crazy, but it’s a funny feeling realizing just how closely those two eras touched. Neal Cassady is one of the most impactive figures of the last 50 years or more. Even after the Beat Generation had blossomed and been eclipsed by an emerging Acid Love Generation, Neal Cassady stayed in the heart of the storm, driving Ken Kesey’s magic bus “Furthur” (sic) from Acid Test to Acid Test. But most people don’t know his name anymore.
Among the two enduring local tributes to this Electric Kool Aid Son of Denver is a framed letter from Cassady to Justin Brierly making chit chat and requesting the loan of a small bar tab payment inside a phone booth at My Brother’s Bar at 2376 15th St in the Highlands neighborhood 80202, pictured above. A lot of the landmarks Cassady described in his partial autobiography. The First Third, like the May D&F clock tower or the big white post office downtown, are still standing, but the wall behind the DCPA that formerly featured Neal C’s face among hundreds of others no longer stands. And there aren’t any statues, I don’t think so. Not counting Jack Kerouac’s teletype scroll tself, which graced a wall at the Denver Art Museum for several months just a couple of years ago, and could, in a sense, be considered a tribute to Neal, the only other testament of any substance ongoing locally is filmmaker Heather Dalton’s Neal Cassady -The Denver Years, a filmic adaptation of The First Third currently in the last stages of post production and seeking assistance from the public with an open heart via Kickstarter. Ms. Dalton has soent the last six years interviewing Neal’s relatives and friends toward creation of a multi-dimensional portrait of Cassady. Will it work this time? I think it will. Of course, it’s frightening to think about history possibly getting lost like that, but I don’t think this history will get lost. Try not to forget.
Doggerel 
