Infinite Jest (26 page)

Mario later said it was just like when there was a word on the tip of your tongue
that try as you might you can’t remember until the exact second you stop trying, and
in it pops, right into your head: it was when the three of them were walking together
back up the hillside toward the tree-line’s lip, not trying to do anything but get
back to Comm.-Ad. by the most direct route in the dark, that they stumbled upon the
cinematic tripod, a dully glinting TL waffle-tipped Husky, in the middle of what wasn’t
such a very tall or thick thicket at all.

Steeply said ‘Choosing Boston as your Ops center, after all, which to us signifies:
the place of the supposed Entertainment’s origin.’

Marathe made a gesture of being willing to take time and play along, if Steeply wished
it. ‘But also the city Boston U.S.A. has logic. Your closest city to the Convexity.
Closest therefore to Québec. Within as you say the distance of spit.’ His wheelchair
squeaked very slightly whenever he moved. An automobile horn somewhere between the
city and themselves blew a sustained blast. It grew always colder down on the desert
floor; they could feel this. He felt gratitude for his windbreaker.

Steeply flicked some ashes from his cigarette with a coarse thumb-gesture that was
not yet feminine. ‘But we’re not any more sure that they actually do have copies.
Also, does this quote “anti”-Entertainment the film’s director supposedly made to
counter the lethality: does it really also exist; this really could be some sort of
game for you and the F.L.Q.,
⁴⁷
to hold out the promise of the anti-Entertainment as a chip for concessions. As some
kind of remedy or antidote.’

‘Of this anti-film that antidotes the seduction of the Entertainment we have no evidence
except craziness of rumors.’

Steeply used a technical interviewer’s device of pretending to occupy himself with
small physical chores of preening and hygiene, delaying, to have Marathe elaborate
himself more fully. The lights of the city Tucson with their movements and twinkling
made a globe of light such as on ceilings at les salles de danser in Val d’Or, Québec.
Marathe’s wife was dying slowly of ventricular restenosis.
⁴⁸
He thought:
die twice.

Marathe said: ‘And also why do they never send you into the field as yourself, Steeply?
This is to say in appearance. The last time you were—what is it I hope to say—a Negro,
for almost one year, no?’

U.S.A. persons’ shrugs are always as if trying to lift a heavy thing. ‘Haitian,’ Steeply
said. ‘I was Haitian. Some negroid tendencies in the persona, maybe.’ Marathe listened
to Steeply be silent. A U.S.A. coyote sounds more like a high-strung dog. The automobile’s
horn continued, sounding to the men forlorn and somehow nautical out below in the
dark. The feminine manner to examine the fingernails was to raise the whole hand’s
back into view instead of malely curling the nails in over the upturned palm; Marathe
recalled knowing this from a very young age. Steeply would pick at the corners of
his lip, then for an interval change to examining the fingernails. His silences seemed
always comfortable and contained. He was a competent operative. More cold air came,
odd eddied breezes up in over the shelf from the desert’s floor, puffs of sudden air
as if from the turning of a volume’s pages. His bare arms had the plucked-chicken
look of chilled and bare skin in his grotesque sleeveless dress. Marathe had not been
aware of when during the falling of night Steeply had removed the absurd sunglasses,
but decided the exact moment of this did not matter for reporting every word and gesture
back to M. Fortier. Again the coyote, and also another farther off, perhaps to answer.
The sounds were like that of a domestic dog being given low voltage. Les Assassins’
M. Fortier and M. Broullîme and some others of his comrades-on-wheels believed Rémy
Marathe to be eidetic, near-perfect in recall and detail. Marathe, who could remember
several incidents of crucial observations he had failed to later recall, knew this
was not true.

Several times also Marathe called U.S.A. to Steeply ‘Your walled nation’ or ‘Your
murated nation.’

An oiled guru
sits in yogic full lotus in Spandex and tank top. He’s maybe forty. He’s in full
lotus on top of the towel dispenser just above the shoulder-pull station in the weight
room of the Enfield Tennis Academy, Enfield MA. Saucers of muscle protrude from him
and run together so that he looks almost crustacean. His head gleams, his hair jet-black
and extravagantly feathered. His smile could sell things. Nobody knows where he comes
from or why he’s allowed to stay, but he’s always in there, sitting yogic about a
meter off the rubberized floor of the weight room. His tank top says TRANSCEND in
silkscreen; on the back it’s got
DEUS PROVIDEBIT
in Day-Glo orange. It’s always the same tank top. Sometimes the color of the Spandex
leggings changes.

This guru lives off the sweat of others. Literally. The fluids and salts and fatty
acids. He’s like a beloved nut. He’s an E.T.A. institution. You do like maybe some
sets of benches, some leg-curls, inclined abs, crunches, work up a good hot shellac
of sweat; then, if you let him lick your arms and forehead, he’ll pass on to you some
little nugget of fitness-guru wisdom. His big one for a long time was: ‘And the Lord
said: Let not the weight thou wouldst pull to thyself exceed thine own weight.’ His
advice on conditioning and injury-prevention tends to be pretty solid, is the consensus.
His tongue is little and rough but feels good, like a kitty’s. It isn’t like a faggy
or sexual thing. Some of the girls let him, too. He’s harmless as they come. He supposedly
went way back with Dr. Incandenza, the Academy’s founder, in the past.

Some of the newer kids think he’s a creep and want him out of there. What kind of
guru wears Spandex and lives off others’ perspiration? they complain. God only knows
what he does in there when the weight room’s closed at night, they say.

Sometimes the newer kids who won’t even let him near them come in and set the resistance
on the shoulder-pull at a weight greater than their own weight. The guru on the towel
dispenser just sits there and smiles and doesn’t say anything. They hunker, then,
and grimace, and try to pull the bar down, but, like, lo: the overweighted shoulder-pull
becomes a chin-up. Up they go, their own bodies, toward the bar they’re trying to
pull down. Everyone should get at least one good look at the eyes of a man who finds
himself rising toward what he wants to pull down to himself. And I like how the guru
on the towel dispenser doesn’t laugh at them, or even shake his head sagely on its
big brown neck. He just smiles, hiding his tongue. He’s like a baby. Everything he
sees hits him and sinks without bubbles. He just sits there. I want to be like that.
Able to just sit all quiet and pull life toward me, one forehead at a time. His name
is supposedly Lyle.

It was yrstruly and C and Poor Tony that crewed that day and everything like that.
The AM were wicked bright and us a bit sick however we scored our wake ups boosting
some items at a sidewalk sale in the Harvard Squar where it were warm upping and the
snow coming off onnings and then later Poor Tony ran across an old Patty citizen type
of his old aquaintance from like the Cape and Poor Tony got over and pretended like
he would give a blow job On The House and we got the citizen to get in his ride with
us and crewed on him good and we got enough $ off the Patty type to get straightened
out for true all day and crewed on him hard and C wanted we should elemonade the Patty’s
map for keeps and everything like that and take his ride to this understanding slope
strip shop he knows in Chinatown but Poor Tony turns white as a shit and said by no
means and put up an arguement and everything like that and we just left the type there
in his vehicle off Mem Dr we broke the jaw for insentive not to eat no cheese and
C insisted and was not 2Bdenied and took off one ear which there was a mess and everything
like that and then C throws the ear away after in a dumster so yrstrulys’ like so
what was the exact pernt to that like. The dumster was with the dumsters out by Steves’
donuts in the Enfield Squar. We go back to the Brighton Projects to cop and Roy Tony
was always there on his bench in the Playground in late AM but now all the Project
Nigers was awake and out in the Playground and it was tense but it was day time and
everything like that and we cop half a bundle from Roy Tony and we go down to the
library at Copley where we stash our personnel works when we crewed and went into
the mensroom where there was severel works on the floor allready that early and got
straight in the stall and C and yrstruly had a beef about who shot three and who got
two and we made Poor Tony give us up his third bag and then but we had to cop for
that nite and tomorrow AM still which was XMas and had to cop in advance, its’ a never
ending strugle its’ a full time job to stay straight and there is no vacation for
XMas at anytime. Its’ a fucking bitch of a life dont’ let any body get over on you
diffrent. And back we go to the Harvard Squar however on arrival Poor Tony wanted
he should hang for lunch time with his red leather fags in the Bow&Arrow and pretty
much I can tolerate fags when alone but together yrstruly I cant’ fucking stand fags
and yrstruly and C said fuck this shit and we screwed out and go up to the Central
Squar where it was cool offing and the onnings re freezing and everything like that
and snowing and boosted NyQuil at the CVS Drug where we go to the mop aile and employ
a mophandle in tilting the mirror over the NyQuil aile and boosted NyQuil in Cs’ coat
and got messed up on NyQuil and scored a bookbag off a foran slope studn type kid
on the Redline platform but it only had books and disks and the diskcase was fucking
plastic and into a dumster with it it goes but also at this time we come up and run
into Kely Vinoy that was working her corner by the dumster by Cheap-O records in the
Squar by the email place and shes’ dopesick having a conversession with Eckwus and
an other man and Eckwus said he said Stokely Darkstar just got freetested again at
the Fenway and confirmed a big Boot 8.8 hes’ got the Virus for sure and Purpleboy
said he said Darkstar said how if he was going down he didnt’ give a shit and wasnt’
going to give a shit if he gave some others the Virus thru trancemission and the Word
was out&about dont’ share Stokely Darkstars’ works dont’ use works off Stokely Darkstar
no matter how sick you are even if your’ dyng for it get other works. Like C said
any thing would count in your mind when your’ sick and had copped and was minus works
and Darkstar had works. We all every crew with heads left have personnel works for
only ourselves that we use except blownout old hose like Kely and Purpleboy there
Man takes there $ and there works and Hes’ the only one can give them there shots
and keep Kely just this side of dopesick 24-7 for insentive for her to make him more
$ and everything like that, theres’ nothing wurse than a Pimp and Boston Pimps are
the wurst there’ 10X wurse than NYC Pimps that are supperst to be so hartless in NYC
where yrstruly petaled ass in the Columbus Squar for a time of my youth like Stokely
Darkstar before departing for green pastures, and we had a conversession but were’
coming down and it was getting dark and snowing for a White XMas and if we didnt’
crew before like 2200 Roy Tonys’ Nigers would be too drunk to keep them from beefing
with us and thered’ be a beef and everything like that if we go to cop after 2200
and who needs a grief so back we Redline to the Harvard Squar and all the foran studns
are in the bars and we locate Poor Tony smoking hash with fags back of Au Bon Pain
and say lets roll a foran studn stuck here for XMas in the bars and cop before 2200
and so we all go on the ice from the frozen melted snow to the Bow&Arrow in the Squar
with Poor Tony and Lolasister and Susan T. Cheese who I fucking cant’ stand and got
in there and made Susan T. Cheese buy beers and we wait and no studns are leaving
alone to roll but a older type individual who any body could see is no studn but is
legless on shots alone at the bar fucking shatered slumped over is getting ready to
depart for green pastures and Poor Tony tells Lolasister to screw she crews with Poor
Tony some times but not if its’ wet work and with Cs’ involvement its’ always wet
work, and yrstruly I inform Susan T. Cheese she new better than not to screw as well
and the older individual de parts shatered and holding onto walls in a hiclass and
promising coat for the possibility of $ and pernts his old nose this way and that
and everything like that thru the Bow&Arrow window C wipes the steam off, and has
a conversession with a Santaclaus ringing a big bell for the kettle and were’ like
Jesus its’ a never ending strugle to wait and cop but after awhile finally after stifing
the Santaclaus we watch he picks a direction finally at last up Mass Ave toward the
Central Squar on foot, and Poor Tony beats it around the block to get up in front
of him around the block on the ice in his fucking heels and feather snake around his
neck and gets him some how Poor Tony always knows how over to the dumsters’ alley
by Bay Bank off Sherman St, and yrstruly and C crew on the individual and roll him
and C messes up his older map to a large degree and we leave him in no condition to
eat cheese in a snow drift of materil under the dumster, and C again wants to siphon
out a vehicle on Mass Av and set him on fire but he has 400 $ on his person and then
some and a coat with a fury collar and a watch we realy scored and C even gosofar
to take the non studns’ shoes which they dont’ fit, and in the dumster they go.