Page 81

By Jack Joseph Smith

a 81 rye, He knew they were afraid of him.coming down into thegisles, and they whispered such, now standing on the huge flat stone under the bell tOwer of Saint Bernards, The childven® eyes roamed ardtd, while they were busy being still while their parents engaged in after-Mass conversation, There is no dragon fire within the Lord nowg We have walked and closed fey door on the fire, that is him in his final and overpowering madness aote “out the time of meaningless passing days on Sunday, .our day of rest, He had breathed remeubergnce through the smiles they had entered with, and they had not been uplifted, .but wane at? Father mo sat alone now He had walked imto the sun leaving the wturiety in arpurple blue behind him, The walk was alwaye nice on the little curving way around and through the passages of the school, He touched the iron railing coming down the winding stairs, and thdught of the childrep filling the upper chureh on 7 ee. — peter Mondays “ourth, fifth and sixth graders. “he Ynbetreen little people throwing spit balls, eracers, pencils, love notes, dirty jockes¥eeribed on paper airgplanes, rubber bands zooming from well direeted fingerss general paraphefinalia was the streft of conciousness passing over the partitions of the misbegotton gothic schools The lower church is a fine place, he thought walking, A deep place below the surfice to sing the twisting Latin songs of the red visioned dead, They must feel traped there, Those people at six 6'clock Masse tnele eyes so barren and I take then even deeper into the white skulled desert, Ha ha, he laughed walking up the dirt hill to the rectory, The Pape cn me to fix up the upper church, The ceiling is high, It's a long winding way up to the bells, Orange tinted bebls, Ha has Sound colored with the color of fire, He turned and looked at the school of golden stone. For the little ones: and for those who are getting ready for the world, he thoughé, Before he went . in, he sent his blessing out in a deep sighs Christ the wind is getting sharp, Be a =

Original Scan

Page 81

AI Interpretation

GPT

Leaving the church and climbing back toward the rectory, Papa Joe thinks through the lower church, the gothic school, the upper grades, and the coming week of children and games before deciding to summon Michael Frost.

The sacred and the disciplinary are inseparable, with Mass flowing straight into surveillance of schoolyard life and classroom disorder. His affection for the children is real, but it is the affection of someone who intends to test and shape them.

Claude

A quieter transition page: Lawnegan alone after Mass, planning to fix the upper church ceiling for the football teams, thinking blue and gray are sky and almost sky, and blessing the school stones before going into the rectory.