Page 22

By Jack Joseph Smith

2. Now there is the music of Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, as we move in consintrated care to be closer to the man as he is running to be with his dog. With the fade out of music we are there in front of the man's face, and we know the dog is dead as the man yells hard, "GOD DAMN YOU WHITE TRASH," as we twist, then pull away from the last of the dog Beefheart's blood and breathing to swing our sight across the eastern bank of the river in search of some possible assassin, but find no human life at all. Coming back west across the river the geese are flapping then floating with their quacking quiting out from the danger they know so well. And quickly we are tracking the man walking with the limp redded dog in his arms through unkept fruit trees wild with quince and prune. His boots crack the undergrowth, his mind sways through the bat vines, until he stops at a cluster of graves that are opened from the branches to streams of mid-afternoon SuN light. A shovel rests against a tree trunk. He lays the dog down, and as he reaches for the shovel, we move around the graves growing with the impression of (this has all happened before) until at the first of his digging he says, "god damn you Beefheart the way you always ran your own way is why I'll always love you, ANd ANywAy wE sAiLEd with thE gEEsE whEN thE poNds wErE stEEp ANd smooth!!" We are moving up into the air away from him, and when from above we see him coming out of the last growth of trees, we know the burial is done. (but for the howling sounds of MorE dogs)

Original Scan

Page 22

AI Interpretation

GPT

The viewing voice finds the dog Beefheart dead and follows the man to a group of graves. During the burial, he recalls the dog's own way and sailing with geese, then the view rises as more dogs howl.

The narrator describes a film-like search across the river without finding an assassin. The man's grief includes affection for the dog's independence. Handwritten and typed revisions alter that speech; the margin note's insertion point remains unresolved.

Claude

Film page '2.': the dog Beefheart is shot, the man yells 'GOD DAMN YOU WHITE TRASH,' and the camera searches the far bank but 'find no human life at all'. The man carries 'the limp redded dog' to a cluster of graves and says while digging, 'god damn you Beefheart the way you always ran your own way / is why / I'll always love you,', and the burial ends with the note '(but for the howling / sounds / of MorE / dogs)'.

Grief is staged with a camera's distance, and the handwritten continuation about sailing with the geese ties the dog to the speaker's memory. The film is the writer's draft, not a record of a real event.