Neal Cassidy, the watch, Times Square and time travel

In the episode, Tallahassee, Neal Cassidy mentions the phrase, “on the road”. This is the title of the book written by Jack Kerouac. The book originally featured a man named *Neal Cassady which was later changed to Dean Moriarty. In the book, On the Road, Neal Cassady (aka Dean Moriarty) has an obsession with “time”. When I first saw the pocket watches on the wall of his apartment, I thought of the white rabbit…but they also very much tie in with the character of Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) in On the Road (see quote below). We see this theme continued in the episode, Tallahassee, with Neal’s theft of the watches…Neal is stealing time. I think we are being pointed in the direction of time travel…and to the idea that time is running out…which to me also continues to point to Baelfire.

When Baelfire was pulled into the vortex, Rumple referred to not only travel to another world but also travel through time. Obviously, if Neal Cassidy is Baelfire there has to be a manipulation of time for him to be the correct age…somehow, time had to be suspended (Never Land? Sleeping Curse? unknown time factor?) for him to be the age he is today. If time was previously suspended for a long time, now that Neal is in our world time would be continually moving forward and for Neal that would mean time is running out….no Emma…no Rumple…no return to the people he loves.

Dean (Neal Cassady) and Time

Dean has this thing about time. He’s either talking about it, or trying to know it, or finding people that do know it. What does “knowing time” mean exactly? In a very literal sense, Dean uses it to talk about musicians. If they can keep a beat, they know time. They are also, apparently, God. Dean says of both Slim Gaillard and George Shearing that they know time and that they are God. Why are the two related? Well you might have to look at what “knowing time” means in a slightly different way.

At a very simple level, sure, “knowing time” can refer to music. But Dean isn’t blowing a horn when he says he knows time. He’s trying to manage his own time, his own life, and his own frantic concern with the passing of time. This concern and understanding of time evolves along with his madness, and we were most interested when Dean shows up in Denver with a pocket watch permanently affixed to his outfit. He switches outfits, so he has to switch the watch. He can’t be without it. When he arrives in Mexico, he trades the watch for a rock crystal. Doesn’t he need it anymore? Did he find something in Mexico that’s more important than his obsession with time?…Dean is legitimately off the charts by the end of the book. He has trouble finishing sentences. He mysteriously appears in New York and then rapidly leaves again. He can’t explain himself and mutters on about time.http://www.shmoop.com/on-the-road/dean-moriarty.html

Dean (Neal Cassady) and Times Square (When the Mystery Man/Neal Cassidy walks from Central Park down 7th Avenue…he goes straight to Times Square)

Times Square – Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Every time Sal returns to New York, he goes back to Times Square. Now you might have noticed a slightly obsessive discussion of time that permeates this novel[/u]. Time…Times Square…Time. Let’s give it a shot. Dean (Neal) measures everything in terms of time, right? This many minutes for sleeping with Camille, this many hours for driving to Chicago, etc. And Sal, Sal always measures things in distance. He’s 2,000 miles from home, or there’s 50 miles left to Denver, and so on. Sal isn’t as conscious of time as Dean, until he returns to New York and looks out over “those awful cemetery cities beyond Long Island City” and realizes everyone’s going to die. So while he’s right back where he started geographically (New York), he realizes that TIME is running out. Because Sal thinks in terms of places, he needs a physical location to represent time, like Times Square. http://www.shmoop.com/on-the-road/times-square-symbol.html

Dean (Neal Cassady) and watches
Dean shows up in Denver with a pocket watch permanently affixed to his outfit. He switches outfits, so he has to switch the watch. He can’t be without it.

One last thing I found interesting regarding time travel. The song, Charley’s Girl is playing while Neal Cassidy walks through New York City ( including Times Square). The album that contains this song links us to Charlie Chaplain. There is an interesting urban legend that connects Charlie Chaplain and time travel. In one of his movies, The Circus, there appears to be a woman walking down the street with a cell phone held up to her ear. People have speculated that she was a real time traveler. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/time-traveler-1928-charlie-chaplin-film/story?id=11992878#.UJ5eDYc8B8E This is another possible nod to time travel.

* In the surviving first draft of On the Road, which Kerouac typed on a 120-foot roll of paper specially constructed for that purpose, the story’s protagonist’s name remains “Neal Cassady.”[10] However, in Kerouac’s final edition of On The Road, Cassady’s character is known as “Dean Moriarty.”