Page 87

By Jack Joseph Smith

I'm not afraid of you. I could feel the emptyness passing between me again, as I said this. Okey Frost, let's see how honest you are. We stood about five feet apart looking each other in the eye, but I felt him holding back a grin. But he always used to grin. I think he was a little bit crazy. His suit coat came off, and he tossed it to a kid standing near him. Then he took off his tie, with his face unchanging. Holy shit, I thought. He tossed his tie to the boy, and then we both began to unbutton our shirts. Here we go tossing our shirts to two boys together. Man, he's really going to do it. The crowd was gathering. Young mischief faces, taking bets in their minds. Not a trace of sound. Off went the tee shirts and there we were facing each other bare chested, barren under a single ray of sun to never shine for my heart pounding, if we don't begin. Let's go, I said. He laughed, Okey Frost, you were telling the truth. We both put our tops back on, and he went about his business. I looked at David. He hadn't said a word, and he was very frightened. In a moment I was caught up in the grace of Sebastian, and I told David that everything was all right. That had been one of the few days David was on the yard during lunch hour. On this perticular day that Father Lawnegan saved his life, he was at his usual place standing with the traffic cop who brought the little children across the street running behind the iron chain. The gray of black rain hung over ice and cement. David had reason to be afraid. Or maybe fear was his wisdom, for that hour was a fierce clash of human skulls. The mad look was in the eye of any boy running in the game of, Kill the Man.

Original Scan

Page 87

AI Interpretation

GPT

A near fight with the ex-boxer coach turns into a test of nerve and honesty, then the focus shifts to David standing frightened on the edge of the brutal schoolyard game of kill-the-man.

The coach's refusal to finish the fight matters as much as the challenge itself, because Michael reads it as recognition rather than defeat. David enters under a different sign entirely, already marked by fear and fragility before the game closes around him.


Claude

The coach calls the bluff as a test of honesty - 'Okey Frost, let's see how honest you are' - and the two strip to bare chests in escalating, ritual silence while 'The crowd was gathering. Young mischief faces, taking bets in their minds.' The boy's flat 'Let's go' wins the contest without a blow: 'Okey Frost, you were telling the truth.' Michael feels himself 'caught up in the grace of Sebastian' as he comforts the terrified David. The page then frames David's exposure on the very day 'Father Lawnegan saved his life', the 'gray of black rain hung over ice and cement' setting up 'Kill the Man', where 'The mad look was in the eye of any boy running in the game.'