Page 381
By Jack Joseph Smith
The Bear looked exactly like
Howard Briening in the locker
room
Highschool and skinning,
Standing there astonished
Where else?
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
A bear becomes Howard Briening in the locker room, and high school astonishment collapses animal recognition, skinning, and memory into a single blunt question of place.
The comparison is so exact that it feels both comic and unsettling. Locker room and skinning put the body under scrutiny, whether human or animal, civilized or stripped down. "Where else?" sounds like disbelief turning suddenly into inevitability.
Six lines where the Bear in the forest becomes Howard Briening in the locker room and the page's whole question is the closing Where else?. Animal identity and adolescent recognition collapse into each other; skinning and Highschool share the same verb.