Page 84

By Jack Joseph Smith

I know damn well you do Michael, so don't try and tell me you don't. Yeah, I do, but they're really good kids. They're a bunch of honest bums at twelve years old. That's what they are. True ain't it Michael? Yeah, I said laughing. They couldn't care less if I yelled at them walking out after Mass, could they? They would just laugh when they got outside. You're right Michael, they're a good bunch of kids. Stick with them. They're my friends. I know, they have guts. He paused for a moment and looked at me with a steal grin. Did you tell The Tank to come up and tell me he broke all the damn windows in the English class? Yes. How did you talk him into doing that? You said that if nobody lied, nobody would get in trouble. The Tank is a good boy. He would go down in death for his soul, which unfortunately now, is in hell. Do you understand that Michael? Yeah, he's all torn up inside. Michael I am going to show you something. It's a way of stoping that from ever happening to you. I hope you remember it. He took a piece of paper and a pencil and passed it across the table to me. Now he said, draw a dot on the tips of the top and bottom corners of the oppisite sides of the paper. I did so. Now show me the fastest way of getting from one dot to the other. I looked at him for a second, thinking I know how to do that, is he some kind of madman. But it took a longer time to draw than I had thought. As I drew a strong desire

Original Scan

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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

Papa Joe affectionately diagnoses the Lincoln crowd - 'a bunch of honest bums at twelve years old' who 'have guts' - and tells Michael 'Stick with them'. The mood sharpens around The Tank, whom Michael had talked into confessing he 'broke all the damn windows in the English class' on Papa Joe's own logic 'that if nobody lied, nobody would get in trouble'. The priest's verdict is stark and tender: 'The Tank is a good boy. He would go down in death for his soul, which unfortunately now, is in hell', and Michael agrees 'he's all torn up inside'. To spare Michael that fate, Papa Joe sets the wordless lesson - two dots on a paper, 'the fastest way of getting from one dot to the other' - and the boy, suspecting 'is he some kind of madman', finds it takes 'longer ... than I had thought'.