Infinite Jest (28 page)

Hal could hear the phone console ringing as he dropped his gear bag and took the room
key from around his neck. The phone itself had been Orin’s and its plastic case was
transparent and you could see the phone’s guts.

‘Mmyellow.’

‘Why do I always get the feeling I’m interrupting you in the middle of some like vigorous
self-abuse session?’ It was Orin’s voice. ‘It’s always multiple rings. Then you’re
always a little breathless when you do.’

‘Do what.’

‘A certain sweaty urgency to your voice. Are you one of the 99% of adolescent males,
Hallie?’

Hal never liked talking on the phone after he’d gotten high in secret down in the
Pump Room. Even if there was water or liquid handy to keep the cotton at bay. He didn’t
know why this was so. It just made him uneasy.

‘You’re sounding hale and fit, O.’

‘You can tell me, you know. No shame in it. Let me tell you, boy, I did myself raw
for years on end on that hill.’

Hal estimated over 60% of what he told Orin on the phone since Orin had abruptly started
calling again this spring was a lie. He had no idea why he liked lying to Orin on
the phone so much. He looked at the clock. ‘Where are you?’

‘Home. Snug and toasty. It’s 90+ out.’

‘That would be Fahrenheit I’m assuming.’

‘This city is made of all glass and light. The windows are like high-beams coming
at you. The air has that spilled-fuel shimmer to it.’

‘So to what do we owe.’

‘Sometimes I wear sunglasses even in the house. Sometimes at the stadium I hold my
hand up and look at it and I swear I can see right through it. Like that thing with
the flashlight and your hand.’

‘Hands seem to be sort of a theme to this call, thus far.’

‘On the way in from the lot off the street here I saw a pedestrian in a pith helmet
stagger and like claw at the air and pitch forward onto his face. Another Phoenician
felled by the heat I think to myself.’

It occurred to Hal that although he lied about meaningless details to Orin on the
phone it had never occurred to him to consider whether Orin was ever doing the same
thing. This induced a spell of involuted marijuana-type thinking that led quickly,
again, to Hal’s questioning whether or not he was really all that intelligent. ‘SATs
are six weeks away and Pemulis is less and less helpful on the math, if you want to
know what I’m doing all day.’

‘The man’s face made a sizzling noise when it hit the pavement. Like bacon-caliber
sizzling. He’s still lying there, I see out the window. He’s not moving anymore. Everyone’s
avoiding him, going around him. He looks too hot to touch. A little Hispanic kid made
off with his hat. Have y’all had snow yet? Describe snow for me again, Hallie, I’m
begging you.’

‘So you go around with this image of me sitting around during the day masturbating,
is what you’re saying.’

‘I’ve actually been thinking of maneuvering for the whole Kleenex concession at E.T.A.,
as a venture.’

‘That of course would mean actually contacting C.T. and the Moms.’

‘Me and this forward-looking reserve QB have been making inquiries. Putting out feelers.
Volume discounts, preferred-vendor status. Maybe a sideline in unscented lubricants.
Any thoughts?’

‘O.?’

‘I’m sitting here actually missing New Orleans, kid. It’d be just coming up on Advent
I think. The Quarter always gets really quaint and demure during Advent. It almost
never rains down there during Advent for some reason. People remark on it, the phenomena.’

‘You sound somehow a little off to me, O.’

‘I’m heat-crazed. I might be dehydrated. What’s that word? Everything’s looked all
beige and powdery all day. Trash bags have been swelling up and spontaneously combusting
out in the dumpsters. These sudden rains of coffee grounds and orange peels. The Displacement
guys in the barges have to wear asbestos gloves. Also I met somebody. Hallie, a possibly
very special somebody.’

‘Uh oh. Dinnertime. Triangle’s a-clangin’ over in West.’

‘Hey Hallie though? Hang on. Kidding aside for a second. What all do you know about
Separatism?’

Hal stopped for a moment. ‘You mean in Canada?’

‘Is there any other kind?’

Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House
⁴⁹
was founded in the Year of the Whopper by a nail-tough old chronic drug addict and
alcoholic who had spent the bulk of his adult life under the supervision of the Massachusetts
Department of Corrections before discovering the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous
at M.D.C.-Walpole and undergoing a sudden experience of total self-surrender and spiritual
awakening in the shower during his fourth month of continuous AA sobriety. This recovered
addict/ alcoholic—who in his new humility so valued AA’s tradition of anonymity that
he refused even to use his first name, and was known in Boston AA simply as the Guy
Who Didn’t Even Use His First Name—opened Ennet House within a year of his parole,
determined to pass on to other chronic drug addicts and alcoholics what had been so
freely given to him in the E-Tier shower.

Ennet House leases a former physicians’ dormitory in the Enfield Marine Public Health
Hospital Complex, managed by the United States Veterans Administration. Ennet House
is equipped to provide 22 male and female clients a nine-month period of closely supervised
residency and treatment.

Ennet House was not only founded but originally renovated, furnished, and decorated
by the nameless local AA ex-con, who—since sobriety doesn’t exactly mean instant sainthood—used
to lead select teams of early-recovery dope fiends on after-hours boosting expeditions
at area furniture and housewares establishments.

This legendary anonymous founder was an extremely tough old Boston AA galoot who believed
passionately that everyone, no matter how broad the trail of slime they dragged in
behind them, deserved the same chance at sobriety through utterly total surrender
he’d been granted. It’s a kind of extremely tough love found almost exclusively in
tough old Boston galoots.
⁵⁰
He sometimes, the founder, in the House’s early days, required incoming residents
to attempt to eat rocks—as in like rocks from the ground—to demonstrate their willingness
to go to any lengths for the gift of sobriety. The Massachusetts Department of Public
Health’s Division of Substance Abuse Services eventually requested that this practice
be discontinued.

Ennet
was not any part of the nameless Ennet House founder’s name, by the way.

The rock thing—which has become a grim bit of mythopoeia now trotted out to illustrate
how cushy the present Ennet residents have it—was probably not as whacko as it seemed
to Division of S.A.S., since many of the things veteran AA’s ask newcomers to do and
believe seem not much less whacko than trying to chew feldspar. E.g. be so strung
out you can feel your pulse in your eyeballs, have the shakes so badly you make a
spatter-painting on the wall every time somebody hands you a cup of coffee, have the
life-forms out of the corner of your eye be your only distraction from the chainsaw-racing
chatter in your head, sitting there, and have some old lady with cat-hair on her nylons
come at you to hug you and tell you to make a list of all the things you’re grateful
for today: you’ll wish you had some feldspar handy, too.

In the Year of the Yushityu 2007 Mimetic-Resolution-Cartridge-View-Motherboard-Easy-To-Install
Upgrade For Infernatron/InterLace TP Systems For Home, Office Or Mobile,
⁵¹
the nameless founder’s death of a cerebral hemorrhage at age sixty-eight went unremarked
outside the Boston AA community.

FROM INTERNAL INTERLACE-SYSTEM E-MAIL MEMO CAH-NNE22-3575634-22, CLAIMS ADJUSTMENT
HEADQUARTERS, STATE FARM INSURANCE COMPANIES, INC., BLOOMINGTON IL 26 JUNE YEAR OF
DAIRY PRODUCTS FROM THE AMERICAN HEARTLAND

FROM: murrayf @clmshqnne22.626INTCOM

TO: powellg/sanchezm/[email protected]

MESSAGE: guys, get a load. my def. of a bad day. metro boston region 22 this spring,
comp claim. witnesses deposed by boston wrkmans comp. establish claimant Impaired
and the emerg. room rept. lists a blood-alcohol of .3+, so be pleased to know we’re
clear on the 357-5 liability end. but basic facts below confirmed by witnesses and
CYD accident rept. here’s just the first page, get a load:

Dwayne R. Glynn

176N. Faneuil Blvd.

Stoneham, Mass. 021808754/4

June 21, YODPFTAH

Workmans Accident Claims Office

State Farm Insurance

1 State Farm Plaza

Normal, Ill. 617062262/6

Dear Sir:

I am writing in response to your request for additional information. In block #3 of
the accident reporting form, I put “trying to do the job alone”, as the cause of my
accident. You said in your letter that I should explain more fully and I trust that
the following details will be sufficient.

I am a bricklayer by trade. On the day of the accident, March 27, I was working alone
on the roof of a new six story building. When I completed my work, I discovered that
I had about 900 kg. of brick left over. Rather than laboriously carry the bricks down
by hand, I decided to lower them in a barrel by using a pulley which fortunately was
attached to the side of the building at the sixth floor. Securing the rope at ground
level, I went up to the roof, swung the barrel out and loaded the brick into it. Then
I went back to the ground and untied the rope, holding it tightly to insure a slow
descent of the 900 kg of bricks. You will note in block #11 of the accident reporting
form that I weigh 75 kg.

Due to my surprise at being jerked off the ground so suddenly, I lost my presence
of mind and forgot to let go of the rope. Needless to say, I proceeded at a rapid
rate up the side of the building. In the vicinity of the third floor I met the barrel
coming down. This explains the fractured skull and the broken collar bone.

Slowed only slightly, I continued my rapid ascent not stopping until the fingers of
my right hand were two knuckles deep into the pulleys. Fortunately, by this time,
I had regained my presence of mind, and was able to hold tightly to the rope in spite
of considerable pain. At approximately the same time, however, the barrel of bricks
hit the ground and the bottom fell out of the barrel from the force of hitting the
ground.

Devoid of the weight of the bricks, the barrel now weighed approximately 30 kg. I
refer you again to my weight of 75 kg in block #11. As you could imagine, still holding
the rope, I began a rather rapid descent from the pulley down the side of the building.
In the vicinity of the third floor, I met the barrel coming up. This accounts for
the two fractured ankles and the laceration of my legs and lower body.

The encounter with the barrel slowed me enough to lessen my impact with the brick-strewn
ground below. I am sorry to report, however, that as I lay there on the bricks in
considerable pain, unable to stand or move and watching the empty barrel six stories
above me, I again lost my presence of mind and unfortunately let go of the rope, causing
the barrel to begin a

HAL INCANDENZA’S FIRST EXTANT WRITTEN COMMENT ON ANYTHING EVEN REMOTELY FILMIC, SUBMITTED
IN MR. OGILVIE’S SEVENTH-GRADE ‘INTRODUCTION TO ENTERTAINMENT STUDIES’ (2 TERMS, REQUIRED),
ENFIELD TENNIS ACADEMY, 21 FEBRUARY IN THE YEAR OF THE PERDUE WONDERCHICKEN, @ FOUR
YEARS AFTER THE DEMISE OF BROADCAST TELEVISION, ONE YEAR AFTER DR. JAMES O. INCANDENZA
PASSED FROM THIS LIFE, A SUBMISSION RECEIVING JUST A B/B+, DESPITE OVERALL POSITIVE
FEEDBACK, MOSTLY BECAUSE ITS CONCLUDING ¶ WAS NEITHER SET UP BY THE ESSAY’S BODY NOR
SUPPORTED, OGILVIE POINTED OUT, BY ANYTHING MORE THAN SUBJECTIVE INTUITION AND RHETORICAL
FLOURISH.

Chief Steve McGarrett of ‘Hawaii Five-0’ and Captain Frank Furillo of ‘Hill Street
Blues’ are useful for seeing how our North American idea of the hero changed from
the B.S. 1970s era of ‘Hawaii Five-0’ to the B.S. 1980s era of ‘Hill Street Blues.’

Chief Steve McGarrett is a classically modern hero of action. He acts out. It is what
he does. The camera is always on him. He is hardly ever off-screen. He has just one
case per week. The audience knows what the case is and also knows, by the end of Act
One, who is guilty. Because the audience knows the truth before Steve McGarrett does,
there is no mystery, there is only Steve McGarrett. The drama of ‘Hawaii Five-0’ is
watching the hero in action, watching Steve McGarrett stalk and strut, homing in on
the truth. Homing in is the essence of what the classic hero of modern action does.

Steve McGarrett is not weighed down by administrative State-Police-Chief chores, or
by females, or friends, or emotions, or any sorts of conflicting demands on his attention.
His field of action is bare of diverting clutter. Thus Chief Steve McGarrett single-mindedly
acts to refashion a truth the audience already knows into an object of law, justice,
modern heroism.