Page 62

By Jack Joseph Smith

A GLIMPSE OF BAD TASTE The Glance "Did you not deliberately kill Paul, Jeromia, William, Jeffererson, Shorty, Kunk, Slice, John, and Randulof." "Yes." Yes is the way I put it. Your honor wanted to know more. The District Attorney was not amused. "What gives this bum, this hobo the right to kill all these man, when he has never even been in the Military." My attorney said that I was defending my girlfriend, Well, the D.A. submitted that it was a willful slaughter. My attorney did stand up and say however that it wasn't rasist, cause Shorty, Paul and John were white, and so was I; I desagreed saying these dead mother fuckers didn't belong to the human race in general. Wow. That sent off a furrer. The D.A. got back to Jeromia, whose mother said he had a East Indian spelling; and of course that would have been rasist, assuming I could spell his name before I slit his throat. Then you got Randulof, I say to the Judge, "who says anybody knows how to spell not the beginning." And then he goes, "well the submitted William wouldn't be a bad idea." The Profer here. Then I speak out of turn and say how about Slice and Kunk, "I had to go back after them a second time, knowing what race they were really have made any differance at all." I thought surely that was a logically way of presenting that one. My, what you call it, attorney for nothing thought I did a great job. Cause I saved my girl, and I get to come back in a couple of months to lecture the parents of those dead sons of bitches...

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

This page stages violence and courtroom language as a grotesque monologue, exposing the speaker's warped bravado rather than asking the reader to trust it.

The voice is deliberately ugly. Its effect comes from how casually murder, racism, and legal theater are mixed, making the page feel like a performance of moral ruin.

Claude

'A Glimpse Of Bad Taste,' subtitled 'The Glance,' is a prose courtroom monologue staged as grotesque comedy. The charge lists nine named dead men ('Paul, Jeromia, William, / Jeffererson, Shorty, Kunk, Slice, John, and Randulof'), and the speaker answers flatly, 'Yes.' He casts himself as 'this bum, this hobo' who killed to defend his girlfriend while the 'District Attorney was not amused.' The black humor runs through a perverse argument about race and spelling: his attorney insists it 'wasn't / rasist' because some victims were white, but the speaker one-ups him -- 'these dead mother fuckers didn't belong / to the human race in general' -- and quibbles over whether he could even spell 'Jeromia' or 'Randulof' before killing them. The casual admission 'I / had to go back after them a second time' and the closing reward -- he 'get(s) to come back in a couple of months / to lecture the parents of those dead sons of bitches' -- expose the voice's moral ruin rather than ask us to trust it. Misspellings 'rasist,' 'desagreed,' 'furrer,' and 'differance' are preserved as written.