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By Jack Joseph Smith

(Cleveland) "Ohio. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That's it." She said this with out a smile. Gibbons looked up at his mother. What he saw then made him a young man, and latter would make his mind fatal. When Gibbons walked away on the lawn, he heard his father say, "ok, I'll get the money." Gibbons was older now and he stroled through the cedar. He felt damn sure that he would know what every tree ment. He found out that he could run around it, but he could not buck it. Even though hiding behind the trees was unusual, he wondered with his mind why his body moving from one to the other made fixed things change. It's hard not to be noticed moving from one place to another, but it is easy if you know how to toss something there. His realization was powerful. Throwing a ball was the hunter they all liked. He could pass it. Lets see how we do with the re- flection of the leaves. Nice. Bad. Can't make the twig a chicken bone to my side. It fell all over his paw, and then it sailed. Now he would learn about David with the sheepskin. The transfer from Acron to Pittsburgh? Dandy's father said, "the plant will always hold its own, God damn it." "When he smiles his teeth get further apart," said Gibbons just like speaking. He saw his mother's face all the time with the obsession of survival. That was not going to be easy. He came finally to the cliff. Looked across the augest field and laughed. Gibbons was sixteen and he knew the sun had given him perminent pink eye. He took his COAT off and threw it over his left shoulder and went on down the trail. The coaches saw him coming from the bluff. They loved him. Watched him out of the corner of their eye just like back at Notre Dame or lower Mc Kee's Rocks. Already he knew their warmth. "Ya fucken jagg off," was muttered. No smile. Head cocked. "When are ya going to stop combing your hair Gibbons?" Huffernegile wanted to know what Gibbons thought he could do without any kind of suit on.

Original Scan

Page 25

AI Interpretation

GPT

This Cleveland/Pittsburgh prose page turns Gibbons into a young athletic consciousness formed by family tension, trees, field vision, and the need to keep moving.

It reads like origin-story prose-poetry. The handwritten Cleveland heading and COAT correction underline the page's draft state, while athletics, class mobility, maternal memory, and bodily awareness all sharpen each other.

Claude

The draft's most sustained prose page, headed '(Cleveland),' tracks Gibbons's making at sixteen. A mother's flat litany of cities ('Ohio. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That's it'), a father's offstage 'ok, I'll get the money,' and a walk through the cedars where the boy reasons out his own gift: he can 'run around' a tree 'but he could not buck it,' and 'Throwing a ball was the / hunter they all liked.' Athletic vocation, class climb, and an 'obsession of / survival' inherited from his mother's face all fuse as he comes 'to the cliff,' coat over his shoulder, into the coaches' rough love - 'Ya fucken jagg off' and 'When are ya going to stop combing your hair Gibbons?' Source spellings ('stroled,' 'augest,' 'perminent') are kept.