A true friend

"...that guy was loyal to me and had real affection for me, and God knows why." --page 62
"And I tried to tell him what North Platte meant to me, buying the whisky with the boys, and he slapped me on the back and said I was the funniest man in the world." -- page 64

In introducing Remi in Chapter 11, we can clearly see the difference in the relationships Sal has to Remi opposed to other characters like Dean and Carlo. Leaving Denver, "in a last minute phone call Dean said he and Carlo might join [him] on the Coast; [he] pondered this, and realized [he] hadn't talked to Dean for more than five minutes in the whole time,"(page 59). Though Sal considers Dean and Carlo close friends, and traveled across the country to join them, he recognises that maybe they aren't as close as he once thought.
With Carlo and Dean, he seems to be a silent observer of their wild lifestyle. Remi and Sal have a comradery, almost a kinship; Remi is excited when Sal shows up at his shack, he cares that Sal is finally there. Remi is there supporting Sal as he arrives in San Fransisco. He shops Sal's play around to Hollywood directors, and when that doesn't turn out, he finds his friend a job. Unlike the "friends" that we have been introduced to in earlier chapters, Remi cares about Sal, and trusts him.

"Everything was falling apart. My stay in San Francisco was coming to an end. Remi would never talk to me again. It was horrible because I really loved Remi and I was one of the very few people in the world who know what a genuine and grand fellow he was."-- page 77

Remi seems to have been the best influence on Sal thus far; while in Frisco, Sal has held down a job, written a play, and generally stayed out of trouble, following Remi's lead. It takes Major coming into town to divert Sal off this track and put him back on the road.
Could Sal's life be different if, instead of taking to the road whenever he hit a rough patch, he tried to repair mistakes he had made?