Jack Balas, 2024; A RETURN TO
INNOCENCE (#2677)
India ink on paper, 18x24 inches
From the TATTOO DETOUR #17 Series, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY,
with text from the novel by James Jones
Text:
But in the big octagonal hole in the ground with its serrated
scalloped concrete sides, it was not important, to the spectators,
who was fighting or who would win. It was only important that
the winy air and excitement of anticipated conflict be enjoyed,
bringing back the distant continent of home where all the grave
young high school athletes, who, despite their coaches with their
turned-up topcoat collars and conflicting visions of Knute Rockne
movies and jobs they feared to risk, fought frantically with the
magnificent foolishness of youth as if the whole of life depended
on this game, and who were still young enough to cry over a defeat,
an illusion that their coaches never shared, a thing that like
Santa Claus they themselves would lose all too soon before the
widening range of vision and the knowledge that their loyalty
was a commodity and could be shifted easily, and a thing that
the men perched on the concrete of the boxing bowl remembered
fondly in their own hunger for a return to innocence.
(From chapter 9, James Jones, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY)