Page 32
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Jim Hyde recalls losing a young man in another hospital and explains that his own family made him defensive about Gibbons's lack of family support.
He says Gibbons is stronger but beyond his help. Gibbons remembers the three Hydes with affection for their dangerous behavior around the metal shop and north windows.
The page sketches the Hydes, 'the toughest family in Mount Lebanon': Dr. Jim Hyde once 'ripped the place apart' at a death scene and carries that sadness 'through the / leathing mills', and Hyde the second declines to stay, saying 'Gibbons is mad as we.' He explains 'he had no family to speak of and I did. It made me defen- / sive, it made him crazy', and the page closes on Gibvons loving to watch the three Hydes 'take risks' such as 'flying into metal / shop and playing at the walls off the big north windows'.
Loyalty and distance sit side by side: the Hydes are friends and allies, yet the second brother says 'I can not / help him.' Family is the dividing line, with Hyde's belonging set against Gibbons's lack of it. The voice shifts between reported scene, dialogue and a first-person memory ('I saw him on the street when he was fifteen'), keeping the draft's loose, overheard quality.