Page 87

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 for 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.

Like the earlier version of the same piece, the page is intentionally ugly in voice and material. Its force comes from how murder, legal rhetoric, and social hatred are fused into one performance.

Claude

'A Glimpse of Bad Taste' (subtitled 'The Glance') is a deliberately ugly courtroom monologue whose force lies in exposing, not endorsing, the speaker's bravado. It opens on a flat confession - asked whether he 'deliberately' killed nine named men, 'Paul, Jeromia, / Jeffererson, Shorty, Kunk, Slice, John, and Randulof', he answers 'Yes', then notes 'Yes is the way I put it'. The D.A.'s contempt ('this bum, this hobo') meets the speaker's escalating outrages: a self-defense plea for his girlfriend, a denial that it was 'rasist' since some victims 'were white, and so was / I', and the chilling dodge that the dead 'didn't belong / to the human race in general'. The grotesque humor compounds around spelling and race - Jeromia's 'East Indian spelling', the boast that he 'had to go back after' Slice and Kunk 'a second time' - until the monologue ends on monstrous self-congratulation: he 'saved my girl' and gets 'to come back in a couple of months / to lecture the parents of those dead sons of bitches'. The page indicts its own voice. Source spellings 'rasist', 'desagreed', 'differance', 'furrer', and 'Profer' are preserved.