Page 127

By Jack Joseph Smith

. 129 i ate baby's crawling with their ot ang down through the cracks of the floor with hunger, while a mand voice bids a hated hellog. Little Beaver and I x offered’ five cops-om in the middle-of the “ount Lebanom police station, one time so long agos when we-were sixteen years old, His father was there, The great surgons watching the cops beat his kid, until I shoved one of them up against a walli Beaver and I stepped back to the other side of the room acared out of our ‘ wits; We-told them, that if they touched one of us again, we were going to take | it all the ways They backed off, Todmuch to risks The;punks. His father stood there in all his importance, with his mouth opens Well, those young girls behind doorg:right around the corner, do that every days. Christ it's sadg Talk about Beatnik Neiliom, Ig the thrill leaving you? . Confromtation is bent up inside of me like a steel wires Once a bouncer in a dance hall pushed’ me, I flew up against a wall, He thought I would turn around and leavey.as he was-much older and stronger, and probably a lot reughesr than meg. I didn't, I put my foot high behind’ me on the wall and flew at hinly, like a cat, I wrapped my hands around his neck and drove him backwarda, When he started to get away from me, l-neld on to his tie and started suashing him with my free fists, Finally he went downy He wast hurt very badly, but his face showed that he didn't. have the faintest idea where he wass: Why? His perception of reality was. different than mine and we had come together and were acting out two different pereeptions im: the arena of one worlds That kind of thing has happened to me alot, and T admit, that it exeites the hell out of meg an oe rs it Buer give ee th FE Sut does that kind of thing inable you to pereeive each other? When someone is pe 8 sibility toga be yowel hE illu sion? gtung by a bee, the pain is only there and real, until it goes awaya Later on that

Original Scan

Page 127

AI Interpretation

GPT

Michael recalls offering to take on five cops in the Mount Lebanon station, then describes another fight with a bouncer and tries to explain the thrill of collision as two different realities crashing together in one room.

Confrontation is still eroticized, but the talk is getting more self-conscious, almost theoretical. Dani's question about whether violence actually lets anyone perceive anyone else cuts straight through Michael's heroic pose.

Claude

Beaver and Michael face down five cops at the surgeon-father's protest against beating his son, and the chapter's case against the rackets is sealed in the whore-house comparison — talk about Beatnik nihilism, it is sadder than that.