Page 124

By Jack Joseph Smith

TAKING THE DRINKING OATH. Ha, six months. Can you imagine, that kind of absurdity? What in the hell is six months? It was toward the end of my last years at Saint Bernards, that they started passing laws againsst gambling machines. The money coming in was cut in half, and my fathers location went from a structure one block long at the peak of Balm Bulavard, to a little wharehouse on lower fifth avenue dead center in the getto. The big boys began putt ing presure on him, and his movements became strained and his parkinson desease increased visibilly, No illusions for me, this is the business, and here is what it means. If you want it now, after you have seen it clearly, then find your own way of dealing with it. You have the material now. How many people live lives they know absolutely nothing about? Or better yet, how many people live lives that they absolutely refuse to look at. No wonder people are afraid of object ivity. It can not only be cold and distant, more threatening is the heat that rises inside through discovery. Is that closer to what you have been talking about Daniel? Yes, it is. I remember walking around in that fancy building and seeing slot machines piled High Against The Attic Walls.

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Under the handwritten title Taking the Drinking Oath, the surviving text turns toward Saint Bernard's, new anti-gambling laws, the collapse of the father's slot-machine business into a smaller warehouse in the ghetto, mounting pressure, visible Parkinson's disease, and the hard demand to look at the business clearly for what it is.

The blacked-out passages leave gaps, but the surviving lines still show a shift from barroom legend to family economics and bodily decline. The insistence on objectivity and discovery lands harshly beside the image of machines piled up and a father losing ground.

Claude

Under the handwritten heading 'TAKING THE DRINKING OATH.', most of the opening is blacked out, leaving 'Ha, six months. Can you imagine, that kind of absurdity?' Michael then tells how laws 'againsst gambling machines' cut his father's income in half, moving him from 'a structure one block long at the peak of Balm Bulavard' to 'a little wharehouse on lower fifth avenue dead center in the getto' while 'The big boys began putting presure on him' and his 'parkinson desease increased visibilly'. He tells Daniel 'No illusions for me, this is the business', Daniel agrees, and Michael remembers slot machines 'piled High Against The Attic Walls.'

The heavy redactions make the page feel censored, as if the drinking oath itself cannot be shown, and what survives is the story of a family business shrinking under law and pressure. Michael's talk of objectivity and 'the heat that rises inside through discovery' turns a family decline into a lesson in facing facts. The final image of machines piled against attic walls works as a picture of stored-up, idle fortune.