Page 6

By Jack Joseph Smith

I was dancing with his sweetheart in a West Virginia town. At Melody Manor, and it burned down. A slip up from the Mongehalia. Fairmont where Jerry West who could spin got hit across the face with an old long neck. Dancing in a brown haired brown eyed dream. Soft. Dear God soft; can you ever lie down. An impossibility just standing with the sweetness. Roxann, Roxann; her name. Down through family, Roxann. They hit him bad. Forget it. A coal miner finished the other side. And his name was John. Big John. Rock and roll and a lonly round stage. Filled like jumping beans. Crazy from the rolling tops. The rails with some brass tops spun. Maybe eight, maybe ten, maybe twelve. Ceiling bound of course the building of the motion stopped. Let me introduce myself diving off a balcony. Shit, picking on a guy with a suit and tie, even though it wasn't Hot Rod Hunly. ui

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The speaker recalls dancing with Roxann at Melody Manor and recounts violence involving Jerry West and a coal miner named John.

He moves between the softness of dancing and a crowded rock-and-roll stage, then describes diving from a balcony and confronting a man in a suit.

Claude

The speaker remembers dancing 'with his sweetheart in a West Virginia / town' at 'Melody Manor, and it burned down', near 'the Mongehalia' and Fairmont, where 'Jerry West who / could spin got hit across the face with an old long neck.' The speaker goes on to a brown-eyed girl named Roxann, a coal miner called 'Big John', a spinning 'round stage' with 'brass / tops', and a line about 'diving off a balcony' and 'picking on a guy with a suit and tie'.

The prose moves in short, broken sentences, so tenderness ('Soft. Dear / God soft') sits right next to bar-fight violence ('They hit him bad. Forget it.'). Place names and nicknames such as Melody Manor, Big John and 'Hot Rod Hunly' anchor a memory that otherwise runs in quick jumps. The rolling, spinning images of the stage give the page a dizzy, dance-hall rhythm.