Page 66

By Jack Joseph Smith

66 from the peak of Morrisen Drives He was standing there-with: a bunch ef ether: kids:and he-hit me in the mouth as: seer as: I turned inte my driveways It was my firet Pight.and I plinthy ran at him butting hin in the middlé-and wrapped’ my arme-areund his waist. and meved my bedy a: little and tripped him as my force moved him He atarted te turn me over; but I jumped up and’steed away from him ready for anything, I locked ' past the Blur of kids-faces-and saw my mother standing in our doorway and’ then fast rushed at him agains I felt ny bedy moving in the same way: and ‘I was: en him again bitting my teeth tegether and’ calling on all the strength I had until‘he started te move-me agaim and I left him on the gréund and jimped aways'.My mother yelled fer me te ceme in and I quickly turned’ from him and waiked eur driveway until’ I passed by her and th: through the front deer my soul pounding with a victory that: left no soars : She -had waited) The Irish in her had waited’ and’ he-had gene dewm twites and my wit’ was: keer enough te leave-him theres’ It was: the begining ef me becoming anew kind of kings A king that would have te leave hia: threne- for the-battle field when his real! seul was in the peetry of the werked golas! Scheel’ began fer me agaim and it was-a-fitting place fer one who was working: his way up te kingship threugh princehoods' Mount Mercy’ Academy was: the name taking the souls of teme-and plédant children whe were rebes in the merning and knickers: and pinafores t@ long laced sleeves: in the afterneens' I seen discovered that Mount Mercy Academy was a girls school, and se prestigeious fer young beys-up te the sixth grade-that it teek me two years to talk my parents into letting me leaves All the highschool and

Original Scan

Page 66

AI Interpretation

GPT

The first fight ends in a felt victory under the mother's watch, and the child recasts himself as a new kind of king before entering Mount Mercy Academy, a prestigious girls' school that becomes the next place to resist and outgrow.

What matters is less the mechanics of the fight than the inward transformation afterward, with combat becoming proof of wit, force, and emerging self-rule. The turn to Mount Mercy keeps that kingship language slightly ironic, since the new school is immediately framed as another ordered world he will have to push against.

Claude

The first real fight — Pumpkin waiting at the driveway, butting him in the middle, tripping him as mother watches from the doorway — closes with an Irish-witnessed victory and the beginning of Michael becoming a new kind of king.