Page 89

By Jack Joseph Smith

with the space gone empty all around, David's freckles seemed to run in solid lines down his cheeks, that seemed to be ripping apart. His expression was one of, I'm not going to do it you bastards, you dirty, dirty bastards. He was frightened to death. For many days he had stood and watched, what to him was the untouchable hell of, kill the man with the ball. He had no friends, although very seldom did anyone ever pick on him, or mention that he was a coward that hid behind a cop. While Lunnegan was speaking, a fight I had had about a month after I had fought Pumpkin flashed across my mind. A bunch of older kids were picking on a friend of Daniki's on the lower part of Morrison Drive. I had walked down Morrison Drive to see an older friend, who was a football star and teaching me how to play football. He wasn't home, but some of his friends were there and they were over and over throwing this friend of Daniki's down the high hill of the football players front yard. I was very afraid of them, but I ran to the boy and held on to his waist, pulling him away from them. They began to push both of us around, and I began screaming and calling them names. I don't think they really knew what was going on inside the boy and I, until I brought it, like a knife being driven, into their ears. After awhile, they backed off and stood there watching the boy and I weeping. But at that point I was swept with anger, so I was now as forsaken as he: I'll fight any one of you, I howled. They became confused and I can only remember everything moving in and out. David's face began to look like mine in my recollection. He was quivering and his shouts were going way in. He was holding himself breathless and steam was steady going in and out of his nose. His face was red and it shone like a touch of crippled Frost hanging. You don't have to be so afraid David, I wanted to say. Go out for a pass David, Father Lunnegan said, as David stepped back and looked

Original Scan

Page 89

AI Interpretation

GPT

Fear, bullying, cowardice, and sudden courage converge as the narrator remembers defending another boy and recognizing his own anger in David's face.

This page is one of the sharper moral pivots in the collection. It starts in judgment and humiliation, then turns into an embodied memory of intervention, confusion, and shared vulnerability.

Claude

David — freckles ripping apart with fear, breathless, steaming from the nose — is introduced as the boy who has refused to play, and Father Lawnegan steps in saying go out for a pass David, turning him into prey on purpose.