Page 118

By Jack Joseph Smith

1g God Forbid, a priest we can not mentions Pregant girls, a subject never to approach, The womens club, said it was the football coabhis 0, my God Deniftt, pretty girlss My true loves She got pregant to a football star, and her scred, scared folks: sent her aways The womens club knew; why she was blues When the time came, for there little snow ball dance, the little girl, she was in a trance, What to dog when everyone hated yous The picking of a gueen,. seemed such a dream) Dont you remember's, she wong she put all the gossip on the runj Highschool stinkss : It sure did,.a good pure laughter came rushing to mes God it felt so fine to be with hims : ]@ Why did’you leave colliége, he said? r nas- tarde out for fighting, The laughter was high and good now and our faces . brightened over the shadows Well, lets see now Michael, Should we begin with the cub scoutss Well lets see now Denti First I was sO cats of Nursery schools Mra, Williams : Was my nursery school teacher and when ! walk into wy home room at good old Mount : Lebanon, there she isg A preabhterien ninisters wife giving me Catholic nedais to wear around my neck, so some clown can pull them off in a bar room brawls’ Christ pani, t've taken om so many monsters, Down in the coal miming taverns: in Castle Shannon,’ It's right out of DaHe. Lawrences: BM being men With pain to give running at you through some blind mystery hidden beneath their eyes, Women with their heads . bent eating crab meat, Here baby, have some more sauseg Hey mister, take it easys. Bamis banig Pye ona pottles in the air? Flying fists doubbling basketball bellyss It's a sight to see; he said, tye had’ the whole tom chasing me Danii?

Original Scan

Page 118

AI Interpretation

GPT

High-school gossip, a pregnant girl crowned queen, sectarian memories, medals, barroom brawls, and coal-town taverns spill together as the two men laugh and then drift back into Michael's rough autobiography.

The movement is loose and memory-driven, but the emotional pattern is clear: cruelty, comedy, shame, and male violence keep folding into one another. Schoolyard religion and tavern brutality feel like parts of the same formation rather than separate worlds.


Claude

A pregnant Saint Bernard's classmate and the football coach are folded into a sung nursery-rhyme summary — the picking of a queen seemed such a dream — and Michael admits he was thrown out of college for fighting.