Page 1

By Jack Joseph Smith

"Young Ben" We are under the clock of the Kaufmans department store, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The hands are at six o'clock in the morning. Young Ben stands under the clock. The street is as downtown fifth avenue would be on a friday morning. There are those that whiskey makes high and those that it makes low. There are peddlers ready for their immediate street shops, and there are those peddlers who are leaving. Ben listens to the Salvation Army bell. The lady swinging it is beaming. Ben can't understand why. He smiles at that, shakes his head, and begins walking. There is a shop in the alley that sells coffie and donuts. Ben goes in. Suddenly to Ben men in their mid-twenties goes by the window of the shop whistling. He is obviously drunk and keeping at it. Ben notices him from his stool (Ben likes to look around) and jumps up with the love of a man who understands sarchasm The door is being opened by Ben The young man is hansome and dressed well. Ben's face shows that he knows and likes the man. Carefree the man is gone. "There went your friend Ben," says the lady behind the counter. She is a baker and a coffie maker who has never slept with the sun. "To many friends," says Ben, "to many friends; I gotta go to work."

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The opening page introduces Young Ben as a working-class Pittsburgh figure moving through dawn streets with charm, street recognition, and a comic sense of burden.

Smith sets the scene under the Kaufmans clock, among peddlers, the Salvation Army bell and a coffee shop. Ben greets the men passing the window, then jokes that he has too many friends before leaving for work. Pencil notes describe his reddish brown hair and contrast his working-class life with men who grew up in a wealthy neighborhood. Some plural revisions remain unsettled; I have not treated them as a completed rewrite.

Claude

The typed opening of "Young Ben" sets a six o'clock morning under the Kaufmans department store clock in Pittsburgh, where peddlers come and go and a Salvation Army bell-lady is 'beaming' in a way Ben 'can't understand.' From a coffee-and-donut shop stool Ben spots men 'in their mid-twenties' whistling drunk past the window, jumps up 'with the love of a man who understands sarchasm,' and answers the counter lady's teasing with 'To many friends ... I gotta go to work.'

The page works like a screenplay establishing shot, stacking street types, time of day, and small gestures to define Ben by what he watches and how he reacts. The flat typed sentences carry dry humor, and the closing half-joke about too many friends frames belonging as both pleasure and burden. Pencil margin notes sketch Ben's reddish brown hair and wide low build and mark him as working class rather than a college boy, showing the draft still being shaped.