Page 94

By Jack Joseph Smith

When school is out today, I will walk her home touching her sleeve. It comes out from her shoulders, like a blossom. It's like I am touched, I feel so weak between me. The organ music makes me high. I want to stand and turn my head with its sound. Papa Joe's soul is dancing like the eyes of a red eyed cat, as he moves under a purple cloak just a level below Limbo. Lent, and the going to six o'clock Mass is over now, but she is still a lilly for me. I am a hero now. Captain of a football team, that won all the games. Games, games, gone away, practice was such a pain in the ass. No audience for kill the man, no practice need for killing. Five thousand people at a grade school football game. I can't imagine that. But I ran beneath them with glory stringing my body tight before I was of age. Or is anyone ever old in the mind, when they find themselves a gladiator? Early in the morning of an April fool, we came creaping in the school. What a ball, to send the organ crashing down the hall. Break the lock on the nuns desk, and find the answers to our quest. Theavery of a nun is funny, there is never any money. Take the study plans and switch them, they will never find them. Acroos the hall take this and over there take that, they will all be confused, if they remember yesterday and where they sat. Everything where it did not belong was put, so that when they saw, they would explode caput. Barricade the doorway with chairs; today children, classes will be held on the stairs. Here and there we will run, with no walls to echo voices saying we are dumb. April fool, April fool, Papa Joe let us go, when everyone stood as soon, as the loud speaker said, who did it, and walked out of their room, and down the hall toward Mother Superior yelling, we admit it. I won't go away from you I told her in the garbage can darkness, behind the nightly silence of Beverly road. The Lincoln bums knew I did it. They smiled a twinkle and

Original Scan

Page 94

AI Interpretation

GPT

Lenten longing, football glory, and a wild April Fool's raid on the school collide, as Michael imagines walking the girl home while also reveling in prank chaos, confession, and garbage-can darkness on Beverly Road.

The page binds romance and delinquency together without apology, so altar desire and school sabotage feel like parallel forms of exaltation. Michael keeps moving between captain, lover, and trickster, as if all three roles belong to the same spring fever.

Claude

Three exaltations collapse into one spring fever here. Walking the girl home, her sleeve 'comes out from her shoulders, like a blossom'; the organ 'makes me high' while 'Papa Joe's soul is dancing like the eyes of a red eyed cat' a level below Limbo. Lent ends and he is suddenly 'a hero now. Captain of a football team' before 'five thousand people' - and then the April Fool's raid erupts in rhyming chant ('Break the lock on the nuns desk, and find the answers to our quest'), the whole school finally walking out to yell 'we admit it.' Altar love and sabotage are the same intoxication.