Page 90

By Jack Joseph Smith

at him. The menacing presence of us was coming over his fading form as he backed off to the other side of a dim sun. Father Lawnegan picked the ball up from the ground and tossed it to me, as David in an instant was gone. I watched his feet flickering in slight slides over the ice, and then I tossed the ball, leading him as he ran. It hit him on the chest, and he held on to it almost falling as his heels kicked high across the lonesome yard. We began to converge on him, running wide spread under the dismal sky. I was jogging evenly with him now, as the others began to close in. His face had gone white watching us close the gap. There was very little sound and the breathing was loud. No one was yelling when he was hit, and his voice screamed with the pain of a broken spirit. Father Lawnegan was there in a moment, and we all drew back as David stood shivering with a wet hate in his eyes. Keep the ball and go with it again, rang through my brain, as the unknown was becoming stronger and stronger. This time he ran as if on the wings of a known fear, and we all ran fast against him. A few of the boys circled and between us he was hit hard like the motion of a weed cut into by a cycle. This time he rose terrified, and we all circled the fear with a distance. His blind raveged torment had almost brought him to the peak of shock, when Father Lawnegan grabbed him by the shoulder with his full arm and held him near. It had been taken all the way, and his spirit lay barren before us, like cinders in snow. Let's see, there must be thirty of you here. Not bad, David of Saint Bernards against thirty other Saint Bernards boys. Your not afraid of them now are you David? You put up a good fight. Who wants to be on David's team? That's right. David's team against the rest, for the rest of the afternoon. I hurried across that line of demarcation quick, and stood beside David. No classes for the rest of the day. I looked at David, as some other boys were walking to him. It was clear. We were on

Original Scan

Page 90

AI Interpretation

GPT

David is forced back into the game, hunted down again under a dim sky, and finally pulled out of terror by Father Lawnegan, who turns the whole yard against itself by making David's side the new center.

What lands hardest is the silence around David's pain, with breath and impact replacing ordinary noise until Papa Joe breaks the spell. His intervention does not end the game so much as seize its meaning and redistribute loyalty in front of everyone.

Claude

Father Lawnegan makes David run with the ball again and again while the boys close in 'under the dismal sky', until he is 'hit hard like the motion of a weed cut into by a cycle' and his spirit lies 'barren before us, like cinders in snow'. Then the priest holds him, praises 'David of Saint Bernards against thirty other Saint Bernards boys', and asks 'Who wants to be on David's team?', and Michael hurries 'across that line of demarcation quick'.

The page stages a brutal lesson whose meaning only turns at the end, when the priest converts humiliation into a new team and a test of loyalty. The near-silence of the hits, 'the breathing was loud', makes the violence feel ritual rather than playful. Michael's quick crossing of the line shows him choosing the frightened boy over the crowd.