Page 110
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The street figure sends Michael toward Whily Avenue, while Michael chooses hard blues, crap games, streetcars, trolleys, and the black carnival of clubs tied to his father's jukeboxes.
This page keeps Michael outside and inside at once: he knows the music, the owners, and the streets, but his suit and age still mark him as someone testing entry into a world that can reject him.
The man sends him 'up to Whily Avenue' for 'a little softness in the tone' and jazz; Michael walks on insisting 'I like the blues, hard blues. Down in me, like a drum on my balls,' with crap games and 'Catch a falling star with piss on it brother.' The page keeps him outside and inside at once: he knows the music and 'all the owners' of clubs 'filled with my fathers jukeboxes,' yet 'They would shit on me if I walked in now,' alone in his suit. The Hill becomes 'Carnival blackness,' a wall 'that has no entrance, has no exit,' where 'illusion and reality intermingle' - an adopted parish that can still refuse him entry.