Page 110

By Jack Joseph Smith

so as a sweet thing can see those black man teeth. They white as snow boy, even on your face. I don't want you to come with me. You ain't ready yet. I don't mean that bad. I just mean when it happens to you, it will be for a good reason. You know your way around; why don't you go up to Whily Avenue and hear a little softness in the tone, and then listen to some jazz. I like the blues, I say, walking on. Yes, I like the blues, hard blues. Down in me, like a drum on my balls. Ann Mavahil's and rock and roll and crap games in the restroom. Crap pitched under the urinal. Catch a falling star with piss on it brother. Sure, the man walking the sax between him on the bar and blowing in your shouting ears. God, I do want to lay down with the woman in his mind. I liked him. Red and yellow street cars with winos passing back and forth, but my tie is tight. Don't think twice about your double Michael. You've been here undressed. You can see it coming. Can't you? What? All these clubs are filled with my father's jukeboxes. I know all the owners. They would shin on me if I walked in now. Alone, with my suit for a Saturday night journey. Tonight I left everything at home before I stepped out into blackness. Carnival blackness. Its light sends talking shadows beneath the surface of the earth, and you stare at their unseen sound. That guy is above it all, clang, clang, fuck you trolly man. Laughter form the street slides its echo across roof shingles and vibrates itself around the wall that has no entrance, has no exit, and encourages illusion and reality to intermingle on the Hill. Those with a card that was drawn before the images were designed, open the gates and walk the street of something stricken from the minds of the incast.

Original Scan

Page 110

AI Interpretation

GPT

The street figure sends Michael toward Whily Avenue, while Michael chooses hard blues, crap games, streetcars, trolleys, and the black carnival of clubs tied to his father's jukeboxes.

This page keeps Michael outside and inside at once: he knows the music, the owners, and the streets, but his suit and age still mark him as someone testing entry into a world that can reject him.

Claude

A street man tells Michael 'You ain't ready yet' and sends him up to Whily Avenue for jazz, while Michael walks on saying 'I like the blues, hard blues', remembering Ann Mavahil's, crap games in the restroom, and a sax player he 'liked'. Alone in his suit on a Saturday night, he notes that the clubs are 'filled with my father's jukeboxes' and sees the Hill as 'Carnival blackness' behind 'the wall that has no entrance, has no exit'.

The page places Michael at the edge of a world he knows well but is not yet admitted to, and the older man's gentle refusal sets the tone. His father's jukeboxes make him an insider by family business and an outsider by age and race. The closing images of illusion and reality intermingling turn the neighborhood into a kind of dream city.