Page 86

By Jack Joseph Smith

faces. The two cops had turned and walked off the playground. The next day I felt pretty cocky about my position on the yard. I was already becoming a revolutiona ry young Jesuit. There by the wall I was. The high wall, where we played King of the Mountain. Hands in my pockets I was. Bouncing up and down with a grin sliding over my face. Ex boxer, coach, Italian, was standing there watching me and picking up a little bit of evil from my movements. I was high and looking around. He walked over to me, looked me in the eye, and then let me have it. Bam bam, bam bam, fast, and my head swam. Visions went all around, but I didn't buckle. He turned from me, and walked on. I watched him disappear around the side of the far school building, and waited for a long time before I saw him coming around the corner of the convent directly above me on the hill. He came slowly, taking a look around him on his way. A sickness passed between me, as I watched his face coming closer. Soon we were again, staring each other in the eyes, when he said, Frost, it's a good thing you didn't move, and then walked away again. Papa Joe drilled me once for cocky vibrations too. Up in the air, I was, going like a charm strung lose from a tight knit bracelet. I had hit the cement on that one, and when I stood and began to stare, he mentioned that I had better get back to what I was doing, and this time do it without acting like a girl in her first dress. I liked David. One time I had stood up for him, and almst had to fight a Polish coach, who had the strongest hands I have ever felt, that dug their fingers into your collar bone, until you kissed the ground, because he had walked into the middle of something he hadn't watch begin. I'm on his side coach. He didn't believe me, and decided to take it all the way. How would you like to fight me?

Original Scan

Page 86

AI Interpretation

GPT

After Papa Joe humiliates the cops, Michael feels himself becoming a young revolutionary until an ex-boxer coach and Papa Joe himself physically check that swagger, tying schoolyard violence, masculine testing, and David's vulnerability into the same hard lesson.

The beatings are not framed as cruelty so much as calibration, a way of knocking theatrical rebellion back into the body. David matters because Michael's loyalty to him reveals that beneath the performance of toughness there is still a fierce instinct to stand with the endangered.

Claude

Cocky after the cops leave, Michael feels he is already becoming a 'revolutiona' / 'ry young Jesuit' until the Italian ex boxer coach hits him 'Bam bam, bam bam', walks off, circles back, and tells him 'Frost, it's a good thing you didn't move'. Papa Joe once knocked him to the cement for 'cocky vibrations' too, and the page turns to David, for whom Michael 'almst had to fight a Polish coach' with fingers that dug into 'your collar bone'.

The adults answer the boy's swagger with bodies, not words, and the page treats the blows as a test he passes by not buckling. The repeated 'I was' phrasing gives his pride a strutting rhythm that the punches cut short. Loyalty to David, 'I'm on his side coach', shows a steadier courage under the performance.