Page 97

By Jack Joseph Smith

now. Pretty long. That will make them perk. The women I mean. Got to keep those eyes dancing. No life above, no life below, can facinate like a girls dancing eyes. You have got the trick Frost. Keep it in your pocket, and never let it get away. When you've got the trick, you need no fortune, you need no fame. You see Frost, we are poets and philosophers, because we are between the corners. But as the corner walls go away from us, they also come to us. We are at the point, where everything else seperates. Ha ha. Or he he, as the case may be. Laughter has a strange effect Frost. Watch it closely. Yes sir, a good puff of smoke, a good puff of smoke. Why did you burn it down? I saw myself walking away from them, alone through the after nine quiet of Beverly Road, as I answered her. Because it was haunted. Then you will have to go away. If you really did burn it down, you will have to go away. Everybody says so. No matter who you are, or how much money your parents have. Oh, I just can't believe it. Maybe for a little while, but not for a long time. I put my arms around her and pulled her close to me. My senses mingeled with her freshness and the sickness of the alley lost its pull. She had said she watched me from the balcony playing basketball. My father taught me how by taking me to see the Harlem Globetrotters. It was the finest experience of my life. Their blackness was so loud. Goose Tatum shouting from the highest steeple. I did tricks for all of them in the early spring, wishing I was black for the road and only a ball and trick to care about. What else was there, now that they were going to send me away. It was in the papers, and money couldn't buy me

Original Scan

Page 97

AI Interpretation

GPT

Corner wisdom shifts into talk of girls' dancing eyes and poetry between the corners, then breaks when Michael tells a girl he burned the haunted place and hears for the first time that he may be sent away.

The mood changes from swagger to dread in a single turn, because the corner's boastful language cannot protect him once the rumor becomes consequence. Basketball tricks, Harlem Globetrotter memory, and longing for black freedom all flare up just as exile starts to feel real.


Claude

The corner men crown the ball-spinning trick as his one portable fortune - 'When you've got the trick, you need no fortune, you need no fame' - and frame themselves as 'poets and philosophers, because we are between the corners.' Then the girl's question returns ('Why did you burn it down?') and he answers 'Because it was haunted,' which means he 'will have to go away.' The swagger curdles to dread in a single turn, deepened by the memory of the Harlem Globetrotters and Goose Tatum, 'wishing I was black for the road,' just as he learns 'money couldn't buy me' out.