Page 21

By Jack Joseph Smith

the accent sounding phony. And the sand is hard along the coastline. And Stavrogin shakes his head abruptly in order to see the wind. To Live here. To be back at his birthright. But O'Neill means something. He means what Stavrogin is go- ing to do here. And he sees the Actress-Teacher's husband's face. The doctor. The smooth, the famous, the nice frightened Doctor's face talking about the wasting way in which his wife does not roll up the toothpaste. Is she smiling Stavrogin? Shit yes she's smiling. And the next day the movie really begins. The O'Neill and Stavrogin movie while the Doctor is bending down to his bumper in back of his own damn hospital, and with a brand new screwdriver is now taking off his back licence plate. Stavrogin was not laughing then. Why is he laughing now? Lord Go Away! Do you still have those licence plates in Carnegie, Pennsylvania? Stavrogin can talk: "God I need a drink!" But: "Oh Christ here comes the ice." One new Moon into full after Kenendy was shot down right on the steps of the Goodman Theatre and Huxley died in Harlem and Edward Alby was laughing at Bash and O'Neill on the tenement stairwell two days into beer with eight- hundred dollars worth of travelers checks still stuck into O'Neill's back buttoned pocket. Drinking drunkeness into lust the foggy window left across the cornea of their eyesights opened slit by slit to the raging and dangerous battle exploding with two pimps who wern't pimps at all as far as sex is con- cerned, but rather calculated and violent thieves preying on

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The scan-verified page joins beach return, the Actress-Teacher and her doctor husband, the missing licence plates, Kenendy, Huxley, Edward Alby, drinking, travelers checks, and an impending fight with thieves.

The repaired transcript makes the page's manic chain more legible without smoothing it out. Domestic irritation, cultural landmarks, booze, sex, and street danger collapse into one accelerated memory, so the scene reads as both comic farce and violent aftershock.

Claude

The page resolves the Chicago licence-plate memory and pivots to violence. On the hard sand Stavrogin 'shakes his head abruptly in order / to see the wind. To Live here. To be back at his birthright', but 'O'Neill means something'. The acting-teacher's husband returns as 'The doctor. The smooth, the famous, the nice frightened / Doctor's face' complaining how his wife 'does not roll up the toothpaste' - then, the next day, 'bending down to his bumper in back of his own damn hospital ... taking off his back / licence plate' so the two men can flee, prompting the refrain 'Lord Go Away!' The collage telescopes a cultural-historical moment - 'One new Moon into full after Kenendy was / shot down right on the steps of the Goodman Theatre and Huxley / died in Harlem and Edward Alby was laughing' at them 'on the tenement stairwell' with 'eight- / hundred dollars worth of travelers checks' in O'Neill's pocket - before the prose breaks toward 'two pimps who wern't pimps at all', 'rather calculated and violent thieves'. Source spellings ('Kenendy', 'Alby', 'drunkeness', 'wern't') are preserved.