Page 3

By Jack Joseph Smith

"He won't listen to me," says the father shaking his head and catching an eye or two of the tough looking men who are coming and going. "Listen pop," says Ben. "I don't want any vioence. Sooner or later if your running a joint, you gotta deal with dat. Dat's dat, and dat's a fact." "Naw, I ain't had any real trouble." "Hey pop! Your from downtown. Your old buddies would kill for you if ya was hurt. You took me out to Mount Lebanon to get educated. My boys know how to slam a fist, but dey don't carry guns, or even shives when we was fight'en at the South Hills show. Everybody knows dat pop. They know that about you and yours, and they know that about me and mine." "Ah, ya making the unnecessary problem out of noth'in." Ben has finished loading up his truck, and is ready to go now. The father goes on. "Your just to damn cocky now dat ya got a day shift. Think your on easy street don't ya. Just wait till ya get forty five and bored devivering articles about your friends." "We're all buddies. Right pop. I ain't got no problems, and I ain't asking for none. I'll just sit up in the front seat and smile at the world going by." We cut to Ben driving his truck through the exuctive section of Pittsburgh. It is Mount lebanon. He has two young boys on the back of his truck. One of who don't appear to be of the other side of the tracks vintage. It is mid morning, and so appearently the youths have skipped school. Been pulls his truck

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The page sharpens the father-son conflict over tavern violence, then moves Ben into Mount Lebanon with two school-skipping boys whose class position is marked by a handwritten note.

Ben refuses the father's tavern logic because it carries an old downtown code of protection, guns, knives, and inherited obligation. The handwritten insertion about one boy not appearing to come from the other side of the tracks adds class nuance to the Mount Lebanon scene: Ben is not simply crossing into wealth, but moving among boys whose relation to that world is already uncertain.

Claude

The dock argument continues: Ben tells his father 'I don't want any vioence,' arguing that the father's downtown buddies 'would kill / for you' while his own boys 'don't carry guns, or even shives,' and the father answers that Ben is 'just to damn cocky now dat ya got / a day shift.' Ben promises to 'sit up in the front seat and smile / at the world going by,' and the scene cuts to him driving through Mount lebanon with two young boys on the back of his truck who have skipped school.

The quarrel turns on two codes of loyalty, the father's old downtown protection and Ben's fistfight-only neighborhood ethic, and the dialect ('Dat's dat, and dat's a fact') keeps it comic rather than grim. Ben's smiling front-seat pose makes his refusal look like ease rather than defiance. The pencil insertion about a boy who does not seem to be 'of the other side of the tracks vintage' shows the author sharpening the class markers of the Mount lebanon scene.