Infinite Jest (2 page)

And now, unfortunately, we’re back to the impression that this book is daunting. Which
it isn’t, really. It’s long, but there are pleasures everywhere. There is humor everywhere.
There is also a very quiet but very sturdy and constant tragic undercurrent that concerns
a people who are completely lost, who are lost within their families and lost within
their nation, and lost within their time, and who only want some sort of direction
or purpose or sense of community or love. Which is, after all and conveniently enough
for the end of this introduction, what an author is seeking when he sets out to write
a book—any book, but particularly a book like this, a book that gives so much, that
required such sacrifice and dedication. Who would do such a thing if not for want
of connection and thus of love?

Last thing: In attempting to persuade you to buy this book, or check it out of your
library, it’s useful to tell you that the author is a normal person. Dave Wallace—and
he is commonly known as such—keeps big sloppy dogs and has never dressed them in taffeta
or made them wear raincoats. He has complained often about sweating too much when
he gives public readings, so much so that he wears a bandanna to keep the perspiration
from soaking the pages below him. He was once a nationally ranked tennis player, and
he cares about good government. He is from the Midwest—east-central Illinois, to be
specific, which is an intensely normal part of the country (not far, in fact, from
a city, no joke, named Normal). So he is normal, and regular, and ordinary, and this
is his extraordinary, and irregular, and not-normal achievement, a thing that will
outlast him and you and me, but will help future people understand us—how we felt,
how we lived, what we gave to each other and why.

—Dave Eggers

September 2006

I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies. My posture is consciously
congruent to the shape of my hard chair. This is a cold room in University Administration,
wood-walled, Remington-hung, double-windowed against the November heat, insulated
from Administrative sounds by the reception area outside, at which Uncle Charles,
Mr. deLint and I were lately received.

I am in here.

Three faces have resolved into place above summer-weight sportcoats and half-Windsors
across a polished pine conference table shiny with the spidered light of an Arizona
noon. These are three Deans—of Admissions, Academic Affairs, Athletic Affairs. I do
not know which face belongs to whom.

I believe I appear neutral, maybe even pleasant, though I’ve been coached to err on
the side of neutrality and not attempt what would feel to me like a pleasant expression
or smile.

I have committed to crossing my legs I hope carefully, ankle on knee, hands together
in the lap of my slacks. My fingers are mated into a mirrored series of what manifests,
to me, as the letter X. The interview room’s other personnel include: the University’s
Director of Composition, its varsity tennis coach, and Academy prorector Mr. A. deLint.
C.T. is beside me; the others sit, stand and stand, respectively, at the periphery
of my focus. The tennis coach jingles pocket-change. There is something vaguely digestive
about the room’s odor. The high-traction sole of my complimentary Nike sneaker runs
parallel to the wobbling loafer of my mother’s half-brother, here in his capacity
as Headmaster, sitting in the chair to what I hope is my immediate right, also facing
Deans.

The Dean at left, a lean yellowish man whose fixed smile nevertheless has the impermanent
quality of something stamped into uncooperative material, is a personality-type I’ve
come lately to appreciate, the type who delays need of any response from me by relating
my side of the story for me, to me. Passed a packet of computer-sheets by the shaggy
lion of a Dean at center, he is speaking more or less to these pages, smiling down.

‘You are Harold Incandenza, eighteen, date of secondary-school graduation approximately
one month from now, attending the Enfield Tennis Academy, Enfield, Massachusetts,
a boarding school, where you reside.’ His reading glasses are rectangular, court-shaped,
the sidelines at top and bottom. ‘You are, according to Coach White and Dean [unintelligible],
a regionally, nationally, and continentally ranked junior tennis player, a potential
O.N.A.N.C.A.A. athlete of substantial promise, recruited by Coach White via correspondence
with Dr. Tavis here commencing… February of this year.’ The top page is removed and
brought around neatly to the bottom of the sheaf, at intervals. ‘You have been in
residence at the Enfield Tennis Academy since age seven.’

I am debating whether to risk scratching the right side of my jaw, where there is
a wen.

‘Coach White informs our offices that he holds the Enfield Tennis Academy’s program
and achievements in high regard, that the University of Arizona tennis squad has profited
from the prior matriculation of several former E.T.A. alumni, one of whom was one
Mr. Aubrey F. deLint, who appears also to be with you here today. Coach White and
his staff have given us—’

The yellow administrator’s usage is on the whole undistinguished, though I have to
admit he’s made himself understood. The Director of Composition seems to have more
than the normal number of eyebrows. The Dean at right is looking at my face a bit
strangely.

Uncle Charles is saying that though he can anticipate that the Deans might be predisposed
to weigh what he avers as coming from his possible appearance as a kind of cheerleader
for E.T.A., he can assure the assembled Deans that all this is true, and that the
Academy has presently in residence no fewer than a third of the continent’s top thirty
juniors, in age brackets all across the board, and that I here, who go by ‘Hal,’ usually,
am ‘right up there among the very cream.’ Right and center Deans smile professionally;
the heads of deLint and the coach incline as the Dean at left clears his throat:

‘—belief that you could well make, even as a freshman, a real contribution to this
University’s varsity tennis program. We are pleased,’ he either says or reads, removing
a page, ‘that a competition of some major sort here has brought you down and given
us the chance to sit down and chat together about your application and potential recruitment
and matriculation and scholarship.’

‘I’ve been asked to add that Hal here is seeded third, Boys’ 18-and-Under Singles,
in the prestigious WhataBurger Southwest Junior Invitational out at the Randolph Tennis
Center—’ says what I infer is Athletic Affairs, his cocked head showing a freckled
scalp.

‘Out at Randolph Park, near the outstanding El Con Marriott,’ C.T. inserts, ‘a venue
the whole contingent’s been vocal about finding absolutely top-hole thus far, which—’

‘Just so, Chuck, and that according to Chuck here Hal has already justified his seed,
he’s reached the semifinals as of this morning’s apparently impressive win, and that
he’ll be playing out at the Center again tomorrow, against the winner of a quarterfinal
game tonight, and so will be playing tomorrow at I believe scheduled for 0830—’

‘Try to get under way before the godawful heat out there. Though of course a dry heat.’

‘—and has apparently already qualified for this winter’s Continental Indoors, up in
Edmonton, Kirk tells me—’ cocking further to look up and left at the varsity coach,
whose smile’s teeth are radiant against a violent sunburn—‘Which is something indeed.’
He smiles, looking at me. ‘Did we get all that right Hal.’

C.T. has crossed his arms casually; their triceps’ flesh is webbed with mottle in
the air-conditioned sunlight. ‘You sure did. Bill.’ He smiles. The two halves of his
mustache never quite match. ‘And let me say if I may that Hal’s excited, excited to
be invited for the third year running to the Invitational again, to be back here in
a community he has real affection for, to visit with your alumni and coaching staff,
to have already justified his high seed in this week’s not unstiff competition, to
as they say still be in it without the fat woman in the Viking hat having sung, so
to speak, but of course most of all to have a chance to meet you gentlemen and have
a look at the facilities here. Everything here is absolutely top-slot, from what he’s
seen.’

There is a silence. DeLint shifts his back against the room’s panelling and recenters
his weight. My uncle beams and straightens a straight watchband. 62.5% of the room’s
faces are directed my way, pleasantly expectant. My chest bumps like a dryer with
shoes in it. I compose what I project will be seen as a smile. I turn this way and
that, slightly, sort of directing the expression to everyone in the room.

There is a new silence. The yellow Dean’s eyebrows go circumflex. The two other Deans
look to the Director of Composition. The tennis coach has moved to stand at the broad
window, feeling at the back of his crewcut. Uncle Charles strokes the forearm above
his watch. Sharp curved palm-shadows move slightly over the pine table’s shine, the
one head’s shadow a black moon.

‘Is Hal all right, Chuck?’ Athletic Affairs asks. ‘Hal just seemed to… well, grimace.
Is he in pain? Are you in pain, son?’

‘Hal’s right as rain,’ smiles my uncle, soothing the air with a casual hand. ‘Just
a bit of a let’s call it maybe a facial tic, slightly, at all the adrenaline of being
here on your impressive campus, justifying his seed so far without dropping a set,
receiving that official written offer of not only waivers but a living allowance from
Coach White here, on Pac 10 letterhead, being ready in all probability to sign a National
Letter of Intent right here and now this very day, he’s indicated to me.’ C.T. looks
to me, his look horribly mild. I do the safe thing, relaxing every muscle in my face,
emptying out all expression. I stare carefully into the Kekuléan knot of the middle
Dean’s necktie.

My silent response to the expectant silence begins to affect the air of the room,
the bits of dust and sportcoat-lint stirred around by the AC’s vents dancing jaggedly
in the slanted plane of windowlight, the air over the table like the sparkling space
just above a fresh-poured seltzer. The coach, in a slight accent neither British nor
Australian, is telling C.T. that the whole application-interface process, while usually
just a pleasant formality, is probably best accentuated by letting the applicant speak
up for himself. Right and center Deans have inclined together in soft conference,
forming a kind of tepee of skin and hair. I presume it’s probably
facilitate
that the tennis coach mistook for
accentuate,
though
accelerate,
while clunkier than
facilitate,
is from a phonetic perspective more sensible, as a mistake. The Dean with the flat
yellow face has leaned forward, his lips drawn back from his teeth in what I see as
concern. His hands come together on the conference table’s surface. His own fingers
look like they mate as my own four-X series dissolves and I hold tight to the sides
of my chair.

We need candidly to chat re potential problems with my application, they and I, he
is beginning to say. He makes a reference to candor and its value.

‘The issues my office faces with the application materials on file from you, Hal,
involve some test scores.’ He glances down at a colorful sheet of standardized scores
in the trench his arms have made. ‘The Admissions staff is looking at standardized
test scores from you that are, as I’m sure you know and can explain, are, shall we
say… subnormal.’ I’m to explain.

It’s clear that this really pretty sincere yellow Dean at left is Admissions. And
surely the little aviarian figure at right is Athletics, then, because the facial
creases of the shaggy middle Dean are now pursed in a kind of distanced affront, an
I’m-eating-something-that-makes-me-really-appreciate-the-presence-of-whatever-I’m-drinking-along-with-it
look that spells professionally Academic reservations. An uncomplicated loyalty to
standards, then, at center. My uncle looks to Athletics as if puzzled. He shifts slightly
in his chair.

The incongruity between Admissions’s hand- and face-color is almost wild. ‘—verbal
scores that are just quite a bit closer to zero than we’re comfortable with, as against
a secondary-school transcript from the institution where both your mother and her
brother are administrators—’ reading directly out of the sheaf inside his arms’ ellipse—‘that
this past year, yes, has fallen off a bit, but by the word I mean “fallen off” to
outstanding from three previous years of frankly incredible.’

‘Off the charts.’

‘Most institutions do not even
have
grades of A with multiple pluses after it,’ says the Director of Composition, his
expression impossible to interpret.

‘This kind of… how shall I put it… incongruity,’ Admissions says, his expression frank
and concerned, ‘I’ve got to tell you sends up a red flag of potential concern during
the admissions process.’

‘We thus invite you to explain the appearance of incongruity if not outright shenanigans.’
Students has a tiny piping voice that’s absurd coming out of a face this big.