Page 176
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Michael remembers O'Dandy leaving for Santa Monica, laughs beside the sad rich girl, and turns his own departure into a drunken island fantasy of drums, sun, turquoise patterns, and a long lonesome road.
The page is saturated with departure fever, but its freedom stays unstable. O'Dandy's beach address, the fading girl, and Michael's island vision all become escape images that are already dissolving into booze and performance.
The narrator recalls O'Dandy's farewell two weeks earlier - 'I'm headed for the city of sin jagg off,' leaving an address of 'O'Dandy, Santa Monica beach' and a dare to 'join / me' - met with the narrator's challenge, 'So you are going to take it all the way.' Back at the party he laughs 'looking down at my sad girl with fading dreams,' confessing the guilt of using her - 'It was / wrong for me to use her this way. But was I really?' - and the failure of speech: 'My eyes are covered with mystery and I / can't communicate any longer.' His own departure swells into a drunken island vision - 'The prince in the bottle is being cast / to the sea... The sound of drums is overpowering,' 'Turquoise / patterns,' 'beautiful girls... dancing in a world beyond / colors' - even as he admits 'I am definately getting higher.'