Page 20

By Jack Joseph Smith

The neon did reach like the desert and for extended times he realized himself as a Moderd figure upon what app- roached oblivion, a lost cowboy in a waterhole of beer cans that needed cash, Not that a bar, or a place with other human's suffering to the juke- box of melincoly strings could save him; but to know he might enter in obvious tradgy might have helped him to turn away from the the empty used car lot he was looking for. The last needle he was attempting might have been dull with drinks on the house, if drinks on the house ment no humitiating struggle, Those things usually

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The narrator places a lost cowboy among beer cans, neon, bars and an empty used-car lot, with money, drink and a needle in his thoughts.

The narrator follows the figure's humiliation and search for relief. The readings did reach and realized remain provisional; the passage does not settle the figure's response to the desert.

Claude

A handwritten passage: 'The neon did reach like the / desert', a 'lost cowboy / in a waterhole of beer cans', and the 'juke-' 'box of melincoly strings'.

The figure drifts through bars and car lots looking for something to turn away from, and the passage breaks off at 'Those things usually'. Several words, including 'reach' and 'realized', are provisional readings of the handwriting.