Page 160
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
At the station Murphy turns the patty wagon arrival into a wild Fasist-Irish-Christ speech, dives face-first into the street, and then privately tells Michael that he was the one who hit the boy and that Michael should stay with it.
The page converts custody into performance, but the private confession gives the spectacle a hard center. Murphy's theatrical madness and loyalty sit side by side, making the scene both grotesque and strategically clear.
At the station Murphy mounts the back of the patty wagon for a deranged 'Fasist movement' oration - 'Hitlers boy's went back to Poland,' the cops indicted for 'alarmist procedures' since 'A boy jaw / saved, is twelve unscarred men thinking' - and crowns himself 'the Irish Christ,' surrendering 'my soul to rubbish' before flapping his arms and diving 'face first, into the street,' yelling 'Insanity is a pin cushion, with upside down pins!' The narrator notes Murphy's eyes 'streighten' as the act lands, and inside the 'barren walls and benches' Murphy quietly admits authorship of the blow - 'he did it' - and tells him 'Stay with it,' to which the narrator answers 'I will.'