Page 64

By Jack Joseph Smith

that he had died. My mother came out of my grandfathers room and I stayed with her for awhile until people began coming in with ham and bread and pineapple sauce that smelled ungodly sweet in the middle of the feeling that was flowing death. Even their talk went into laughter split with sounds of the unreal. I went into a corner and then turned my head and saw myself running again down the trail that he and I had chased on. And on and on I ran during these days of Whiskey smell and black lace over worn noses, until we were home again again and the blossoms of spring were Easter and the beginning of life after death. Mass on Sunday came out of purple into white and the priest was filled with grace crossing across the alter with his vestments flowing in the hands of alter boys walking reverently behind him. I had been free now of school for months and warm air was moving the ivy green in the light again. Saturday and Sunday were the days I would meet Daniel and take him to Kennedy forest to show him what I had found during the week while he was in school. I had no trouble getting away from my yard as before, for as my imagination had grown so had my ability of finding ways to touch the end of it. Once upon a time the word went out that the police had surrounded Kennedy forest and were really closing in on a man who had run away from the insane asylum. We went up on top of Metzes hill and watched them moving around and going in and out of the forest. It was a long time before they caught him and we watched them take the man across the basin of the field where the tall grass meet the trees. All the time sitting up on top of the hill we thought about how it would be if we were insane and running from the cops through the forest. After that when we went along hidden

Original Scan

Page 64

AI Interpretation

GPT

After the death, whiskey, black lace, food, and laughter carry mourning into a strange social flow, and spring returns with freedom, Daniel, Kennedy forest, and the spectacle of police closing in on an escaped asylum man.

Death does not stop the child's imagination; it redirects it straight back into forest myth and outlaw fantasy. Watching the police search from Metzes hill lets insanity become something pursued, observed, and then inwardly tried on by the boys.

Claude

Mourning is a clash of sense and tone: ham, bread, and 'pineapple sauce that smelled ungodly sweet in the middle of the feeling that was flowing death', the adult talk 'split with sounds of the unreal'. The boy slips to a corner and re-runs the old chase trail in his mind through these 'days of Whiskey smell and black lace over worn noses', until the narration resurrects into 'Easter and the beginning of life after death', Mass moving 'out of purple into white'. Spring returns him to Daniel and Kennedy forest, where the spectacle of police closing on an escaped asylum man becomes new myth, the boys imagining 'how it would be if we were insane and running from the cops through the forest'.