Page 157

By Jack Joseph Smith

156 I said in a sineere frantic, let's stop this hell and take care of this guys He is hurt bad I-looked up at O'Dandy and then at Murphy, They looked like white skulls prowling through the unforgivens There was no pain in my fist, but where had the sound come from? Surely from me, I-had thoughts I was the last to see him . before he fells ut the unity of pain and sound agony was in everyones mind How else coutd it be, when everyone was in the wild depth; Everyone waa in an unconcious statey without any prethought’ reason or directions Our instincts were together in the flow of deaths There were no sides,’ There was only rage and the blifding ego, that demanded that all’ take it all the ways But sound had crumbled a spirit, and through it, we:could all feel its Who had really hit him Had I passed him on to Murphy, or had Murphy passed him on to meg I didn't know now, but I wanted to so despertilys' His head had been swimming through the slaming claws of madnesas’ His vision had been taken away, and so had it gone from those behind the clawa, Dis tryction was vast in the minds of both; No one could see the other, and no one could | see themselvess Put desire through a hell storm and kill its’ This is the only way ; when frustration is raging, The emptyness had to be filled, and now seeping into my guts were -his seighs,, I thought I was on the road leaving this moveable torments Nowy yess once again, it is kissing my bowles with the sickness of a serpent, and making them spill the sour juce into my veinsg My heart is pumping with the mad love of the forgiven, .I ‘forgive him for his rushingy but I can't forgive myself, for I ~_ am questioning my sing. God, his moan ia lows Deep, and lost of bitterness,’ Ofly wishing for a newness, A beginning from this point ony with nothing to remind him of his birth} Take the pain away, and I will be goody Let:me speaky without the 2 movement that constitutes sound tearing my words apart, I heard a car and turned to see a red light turning and a white light streaming i

Original Scan

Page 157

AI Interpretation

GPT

Kneeling beside the badly hurt man and hearing his low moan, Michael is overtaken by guilt and confusion just as the police lights come across the meadow and he and Murphy are identified, cuffed, and taken away.

The voice turns inward fast here, and for once the fight is not being narrated as excitement but as contamination. The arrest lands almost as a relief because it interrupts the moral panic already taking hold in him.

Claude

The unforgivable moment — was it Michael's hit that felled the boy or Murphy's — is held open as a wound, and the oncoming red-light siren beams yellow-gray across the medow while the narrator frames the wild depth as a shared pain.