Page 125

By Jack Joseph Smith

The beyond is always there. It's the recognition of beauty that gives meaning to pain. Mankind would not endure, if there was no belief in light. It is many times not reached because man seldom has the strength to go beyond faith. But the spirit is always waiting to shine and it can only take so much darkness. Sometime there will have to be a final explosion for you, or death. I am also talking about myself Michael, but in a different way. In a sense, you have already accepted the light. Yes. I haven't and I know that. I find it very difficult to believe in God anymore. The trip to South America was a hell journey. My father must have taken thirty of his business friends. At this point that word, business friend, is calm. Gangsters is the best I can presently come up with. One guy told me a story about how he made it. When he came back from the war, he had made enough money gambling and hussling to buy some fancy clothes and play awhile. He started moving around in the racket money circles. He was a good boxer. People got to know him. Outside of town, they had a ring set up in an old barn. Only the in people knew where it was. The rich knew and they came from all aver. The gangsters asked him to be a gladiator. If he fought for one year, they would give him a setup. One year under the lights, between the fat faces of the rich. Fighting bare fisted, until he or his opponent was down for the night or dead. Do you know what a cat walk is Daniel? No. It's a runway just below the ceiling, where men walk with tommie guns to protect the money being tossed on the floor. He fought under those guns every other night for a year. That was his business orientation. He's one of the better business people.

Original Scan

Page 125

AI Interpretation

GPT

Dani argues that beauty and light are what give pain meaning, while Michael admits he can no longer believe in God and answers with a South America story about a gangster made to fight bare-fisted under guns and rich spectators for a year.

The exchange pulls Michael's violence into a larger moral frame: Dani keeps pushing toward faith and light, while Michael answers with spectacle, rackets, and bodily ordeal. South America arrives not as travel but as another proof that power turns men into entertainment.

Claude

Daniel tells Michael that 'The beyond is always there' and that 'Mankind would not endure, if there was no belief in light', while Michael answers that he finds it 'very difficult to believe in God anymore' and recalls a South America 'hell journey' with his father's gangster 'business friends', one of whom fought bare fisted as a 'gladiator' for a year under men on a cat walk with 'tommie guns'.

The page sets a theology of light against a parable of money and violence, and the second half reads as Michael's reply to the first. The gangster's year 'under the lights, between the fat faces of the rich' turns light into spectacle, and the dry close, 'That was his business orientation', lets the word business carry the whole moral judgment.