Page 175

By Jack Joseph Smith

acknowledgement of a money maker, while the after- pain was most always about what never got said. Now his eyes were far away and faded. Tonight he had an engagement to sing at a fallen bar bought for a young lady by a movie star with death in his nearly last eyes. The star's death had closed an era of at least a small circle; and the young lady was not so young anymore even in her mind or ways. Jiven Joe would break his engagement, and in- stead hussle some stuff for a different type of salesmenship; For he knew that anyone can die from making a mistake; but he could control the existence of his never being in prison again. Picking up to his stride, Jaugeline had wound through the curves of Brentwood's Sunset Bulvd. The Madrone and E. were like flakes of treed re- asonableness at the end of a world centered at the strip, limbed through the plateau's of Bev- eraly Hills; branched trimmed by men upon the elite American Spanish riser canyon's, and dead dying as twigs a thousand yards before the cliffs by Safeway stores and patronage unlimited. The motion of them walking down to the Santa Monica bars had been carefree. There had been waves and the offer of rides; but to one another they were certainly cleaned from cars. Passing

Original Scan

Page 175

AI Interpretation

GPT

The page ties Jiven Joe's acting, hustling, and mortality together, then shifts back to Jaugeline moving through Brentwood and Santa Monica's social geography.

Jiven Joe's calculation about prison and death is coldly practical, while the landscape around Jaugeline returns the work to a city of class zones, routes, canyons, stores, and exposed desire. The shift feels deliberate: private schemes keep spilling back into the geography that formed them.


Claude

Acting, hustling, and mortality are tied together, then Jaugeline's walk through Brentwood carries the scene into another register. The page is a pivot.