Page 71

By Jack Joseph Smith

know now that they were seperate on the same level of distance. Hurry up and get the introduction over with. I see myself in you standing there selling. Selling what? We are already here. We have already paid. We have no answers and you are creating the questions. Leave before its to late for you and an old hag faints. There is no falling star. Those are electric lights and your color is unclean with dirty blue shadows. Your voice is screeching for a laugh. Alright I'll give you one. Ha ha. How's that. You know how it is. It stinks. At least I tell my jokes in corners. Even beside the urinal, where you can hear its yellow laughter running away with your dreams of smashing the mirror over your partner's stone face. When the martini man would look at me, I would pick up my boy scout cocktail and my eyes would wander around his face over the roundness of my red cherry. He is looking away again and smiling now. I wonder where his little boy is? I wonder where Frost's mind is at bringing his kid here? The dancing has begun everyone and you don't even have to move. The glass is your friend; let it bring your mind to the stage of beautiful women and skinny men as they curtsey on the brim of a nightclub moon in orange and blue for you and yours tonight in the mystery of your joy that no one knows but we the doctors of the witch who has all the magic cures. No falling star to blind you, dreamer, in the house of windless space. Let your contentment swim out over gracious hearts, for we are here to fill you with the world. No song is left unsung. Check please. Yes sir. Sorry to see you go. Come back again. Please don't let the mirror see me long; I have a pallid grin within. Oh hopeless story I am caught between, watching a life I want to lead without fanfare. It was fun to watch the martini man's gaze following the coated people leaving in the middle of the show. What a demonstration of individuality, shouted the martini man to me through

Original Scan

Page 71

AI Interpretation

GPT

The nightclub's false stars, screeching stage voice, boy-scout cocktail, and departing coat-draped patrons leave the child caught between disgust, fascination, and a life he can see but does not want to inherit.

The page turns openly judgmental, breaking the room down as a place of fake light, forced laughter, and poisoned glamour. Even so, the child stays magnetized by the martini man and the show, which gives the whole scene its uneasy power.

Claude

The narrator addresses the struggling nightclub comic in his head ('Your voice is screeching for a laugh. Alright I'll give you one. Ha ha.'), sips a boy scout cocktail while the martini man watches him, wonders where Frost's mind is 'bringing his kid here', and imagines the club's seductive patter before the check is called and the martini man shouts 'What a demonstration of individuality' as people leave mid-show.

The page is a collage of interior monologue, imagined sales pitch, and overheard service talk, showing a child already fluent in the club's false promises. His identification with both the failing performer and the lonely martini man, and the plea not to let the mirror see him long, points to self-disgust and a hunger to live 'without fanfare'.