Page 27

By Jack Joseph Smith

We hear; "hey Dooling." God damn your crazy ass; get up here!" We hear; "working I.P." We hear; "god damn it Dooling, it's Miller to you." We hear; "yes, I.P. Miller, I'm working!" We hear; "shit!" I.P. Miller is moving across the high planks. Black hair, black shoulder coat, black eyes, black mouth from good drink. He really believes he has found out where Dooling is. We know him when he stops in his tracks. He is the man that when he is through with business waits two hours before he smiles. Dooling is moving off to anouther spot. Miller yells. "Get up here." We are seeing beneath and above. "I'm working." Miller moves over the planks again to the sound. "Now, right now." Fifty paces over, "working!" Miller walking hard talking to what he owns. "Drunk, your drunk. You think this is the wild- neress Dooling. Drunk. Your Drunk. Now get up here!" "Working." We are watching top and bottom. Miller one place, Dooling another. "You can't run the boilers tonight Dooling any more than I can. I got the report on your shouting drunking poetry at eleven thirty, and now I am here two hours later. Does that give you any idea idea about what I am talking about." "Working." We are on Dooling and he is remote. "Your full of shit now Dooling." This is a one hundred year old timber mill, and we move back into consciousness just as Dooling's boss knows he is a friend as walk-

Original Scan

Page 27

AI Interpretation

GPT

I.P. Miller confronts Dooling across the mill planks, accusing him of drunkenness while Dooling answers with repeated claims that he is working.

The page stages labor danger as a shouted cross-cut scene: Miller above and Dooling elsewhere, authority and refusal separated by planks, boilers, and distance. The repeated 'working' becomes both defense and incantation.

Claude

I.P. Miller confronts Dooling across the mill's high planks - 'drunk, you're drunk,' 'working' - the exchange running until Miller concedes Dooling has 'blessed tomorrow.'

The page reads as near-comedy set inside genuine danger - a hundred-year-old timber mill, a drunk boiler man, and a boss who arrives two hours after a report of shouting drunken poetry. Miller's final remark about blessing tomorrow is more tender than expected, the institutional man acknowledging something in Dooling's refusal that he cannot name but will not entirely erase.