Page 24
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The narrator recalls schooling and juvenile confinement, where the boys seek Alanzo Johnson's advice and help restrain another boy during a seizure.
The narrator credits Alanzo with controlling a dangerous scene and describes the guard's respect for him. Cigar Cid follows as an institutional authority whose rank depends on succession rather than education. The revised opening names experiences of structure.
Page 2 opens 'These were experiences of structure.' and moves from Mount Mercy Academy in 'nineteen forty eight', with 'Juvenile Hall' s fence across the street', to Doolin's 1955 'two week retrial at Throne Hill', where sixteen-year-old Alanzo Johnson picks Clifton, Butch Howard and William Sterling for his baseball team. Alanzo has the boys hold down an older boy 'suffering dangerously with a great possibility of fatality from an eptaletic / sezure' while he holds his tongue, and 'Even the quard, / the boss, respected Alanzo for that very controled act.'
The prose sets two institutions side by side, the school and the juvenile home, and treats both as teachers of order. Alanzo becomes the model of competence under pressure, while Cigar Cid's rise shows authority that comes from rank rather than education. Many typed cancellations and handwritten insertions show the author sharpening the seizure scene.