Page 27

By Jack Joseph Smith

III "Take your suit off to fight or ride Gibbons?" He wore levis, football shirts that were white, unlaced black shoes, and whatever black or blue he could get in a jacket. "Ya! must have lost something Gibbons the way you like your chin on your shoulder." (There is alot to pause about) But when Gibbons thought about the glory he was leaving he had to have action. "You shine that chevy up John, he he, as in laughter? He he." "Made it on my own Gibbon." John was black too and good looking. Thin. Shoulders and bones. All the songs. To go where you haven't been either. Streight chicle. (John's married for Christ's sake) The young that never hear that corner loofing is hard are the ones that do it. "For christ's sake," Gibbons thought. "I'm going to Notre Dame and all the world loves me. Their is no kid Christ..." John was near the door of his black chevy. John held his mouth like a ribbon. "I got whiskey Gibbon, and isn't it a mortal sin if you think it, and a venual one if you don't? Let's face it. Together we're a piece of ass." "Yeah jagg off, I'll step in." And the motor hummed up. A few miles down the road there was a pole waiting in space like an ant. The presence of nothing grew as Gibbons laugh became abandon. There can never be enough wind when one is landlocked. "Alleghany County Gibbon!" "Yeah, we'll take them off." No matter what the air was sweet mostly because the brick laid out the hills into the levels of the rich.

Original Scan

Page 27

AI Interpretation

GPT

Gibbons and John exchange taunts about clothes, glory and sin, then drive through Alleghany County in John's black Chevy.

Gibbons imagines going to Notre Dame while John offers whiskey. The narrator contrasts the hunger for wind with the enclosing hills and the rich people's brick-built levels.

Claude

Section III dresses Gibbons in 'levis, football / shirts that were white, unlaced black shoes' and sets him with John, who offers whiskey and a joke about sin before Gibbons says '"Yeah jagg off, I'll step in."' and 'the motor hummed up.' The page ends on the road, where 'There can / never be enough wind when one is landlocked.'

Rough banter, Catholic references and bravado ('all / the world loves me. Their is no kid Christ...') run alongside a restless wish to leave. The closing images of a pole 'waiting in space like an ant' and brick that lays the hills 'into the levels of the rich' turn the drive toward class and confinement.