Page 84

By Jack Joseph Smith

84: } I know dawn well you do Michael, so don't try and tell me you don! te Yeah, +: do, but tnedY really good kids melt!" = buneh of honest bums at twelve years old, That's what they ares True ain't it Michael? Yeah, I said laughings They couldn't care less if I yelled at them walking out efter Mass, could they? They would just laugh when they got outsides Youreright usonaer; AHENS good bunch of kids, Stick with thems i Theikny friends; ‘ I kmows they have gutss He paused for a moment and looked at me with a ateat: grins Did you tebly The fonkd to come up and tell me he broke all the damn windows im the English elass? Yess How did you talk him into doing that? . : You said that if nobody lied, nobody would get. in troubles : The Tank is a good boys He would go down in death for his soul, which unforturnately , now,,is in hells “o you understand that Michael? Yeah, he's all torn up insides ; Michael I am going to show you something, It's a way of siding thet from ever happening to yous I hope you remember its 5 He took a piece of paper and a pencil and passed it across the table to mes Now he - said, draw-a dot on the tips of the top and bottom eorners of the oppisite sides of ; the papers I did soy Now show me the fastest way of getting from one dot to the others I looked st him for a second, thinking I lmow how to do that, is he sole kind of madman, But it took a longer time to draw than I had thought. As I drewia strong desire | Fl sc iHie ec gesene ence vesss tg _ ee

Original Scan

Page 84

AI Interpretation

GPT

Michael and Papa Joe laugh over the Lincoln crowd, Tank breaking windows, and honest young bums, then the priest abruptly turns serious and offers a drawn exercise as a way to keep Michael from being torn up inside like Tank.

The scene holds both complicity and correction, which is why it lands so hard: Papa Joe respects the boys' guts but refuses to romanticize damage. The paper-and-pencil problem feels less like schoolwork than a coded lesson about truth, directness, and not wasting the soul in crooked movement.


Claude

The Tank is named the one who went to tell Papa Joe he broke all the damn windows in the English class; Lawnegan then hands Michael a paper and pencil to draw the straightest line between two dots without a ruler.