Page 113

By Jack Joseph Smith

A breath, yeah. He is thin and beautiful. Very sergene, but strong. I liked him again. Let's get a table, I said. If you would like? O, yeah. That would be good. Sure would, and he nodded. He downed his beer and I ordered two more from the bartender and we walked across a narrow space and sat at a table. We faced each other smiling and I spoke first. It sure has been a long time Daniel. It sure has. Hows your head? In terms of thought or in terms of feeling? Or in terms of both? Well, I heard you were in a bad accident. Do the scars look like I am a German fencer? He laughed. Sure. Were you driving? I mean, I heard you weren't, but I wondered about it. No I wasn't, I was in O' Dandy's sports car. He's the big guy? Yes; he is an unbeliveable character. I don't know them. I have never talked to any of them. Those guys they say you run around with. His composure was very quiet, and very slow in speech. What are they like, he questioned. There a bunch of guys who are forever storming the Bastille, just to storm it. My heart is pounding from all the escapades Daniel. The drinking has been heavy. Heavy and deep. I see it all through red. Now blues, but in blinking. Cold and

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Over beers at a small table, Michael and Dani reconnect after a long absence and move quickly from talk of Michael's accident into his drinking, O'Dandy, and the men he runs with.

The exchange opens in a friendly, almost courtly way, but Michael immediately starts building a rough self-portrait out of scars, booze, and bad company. The language already swings between calm conversation and inflated underworld drama, which gives the reunion a strained intensity.

Claude

They get a table and Daniel - 'thin and beautiful. Very sergene, but strong' - asks 'Hows your head?', and Michael answers the layered way ('In terms of thought or in terms of feeling? Or in terms of both?'). The scars become a joke - 'Do the scars look like I am a German fencer?' - before the talk slides into the accident in 'O' Dandy's sports car.' Asked what his crowd is like, Michael paints them in inflated underworld color: 'a bunch of guys who are forever storming the Bastille, just to storm it,' the drinking 'Heavy and deep. I see it all through red.' The reunion's courtesy already strains against self-mythologizing bravado.