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By Jack Joseph Smith

he may see the pain to walk away from it. As I walked toward Daniel, I saw his lifted face take on an expression of a man alone in a field waiting for God to say, disappear. I knew it was myself I was seeing, as I walked to him. The time had come for me to go away from what I had thought myself to be. No one would recognize me. They would begin to look away as I walked between them. A change was coming hard and shedding light on my vision. I would have to look at it. No matter how unclear this moment might be. It must be followed. Later in the dreary morning of a drunken sleep, I had a dream. Daniel and I had stayed in the bar until closing, walked the street thinking, and then gone away from the growing silent street to our castle homes. I had been thinking about my father and his business friends. My so called Uncle Jackie had long ago left my father, because of political reasons. He had been more involved with the man named Hammerigan. Not that Hammerigan had given Uncle Jackie more power, than he had given my father. It was just that Uncle Jackie and Hammerigan were closer in their way of thinking. They were both power seekers and very tightly involved with the syndicate. My father was not. He had been set up by Hammerigan. This was certainly true. But he was not a wheeler dealer. He was a basicly honest man, whose honestly was used for profit. During the time when they were making gambling machines illegal my father was losing a great deal of money. His association with Hammerigan grew in distance. Hammerigan was being investigated by the Senate, for income tax evasion and asked my father to interchange properties with him for protection. When my father said no, Uncle Jackie quickly severed his association with my father. I lay in my bed thinking of the viciousness of that twisted world, and fell off to sleep. I was standing in my fathers office. It was very dark, with a single light

Original Scan

Page 132

AI Interpretation

GPT

Walking back toward Dani with the sense that a change is coming, the narrator drifts into a later dream-framed memory of his father, Uncle Jackie, Hammerigan, the jukebox business, Senate trouble, and an old betrayal over a property swap.

The motion inward continues, but now family business replaces street theater as the source of corruption and dread. The father is drawn as more basically honest than the others, which makes the coming dream feel less like accusation than inheritance.


Claude

The night turns inward. Walking Michael toward a 'change... coming hard,' he sees in Daniel's 'lifted face' 'a man alone in a field waiting for God to say, disappear,' and recognizes 'it was myself I was seeing.' He resolves 'to go away from what I had thought myself to be.' Then the dream frame opens: lying awake he sorts the syndicate politics - 'Uncle Jackie and Hammerigan were closer in their way of thinking,' both 'power seekers,' while his father, 'a basicly honest man, whose honestly was used for profit,' refused to 'interchange properties' for Hammerigan's protection, so Jackie 'severed his association.' Thinking 'of the viciousness of that twisted world,' he falls asleep into his father's dark office under 'a single light beam.'