Infinite Jest (84 page)

‘You mean you’re talking a tough-choices, limited-resources-type situation.’

‘But in the simplest of examples. The most child-like case.’ Marathe’s eyes momentarily
gleamed with enthusiasm. ‘Suppose that you and I, we both wish to enjoy a hot bowl
of the Habitant
soupe aux pois
.’

Steeply said ‘You mean…’

‘But yes. French-Canadian-type pea soup.
Produit du Montréal
.
Saveur Maison. Prête à Servir
.’
¹⁷¹

‘What
is
it with you people and this stuff?’

‘In this case imagining both you and I are in the worst way craving for Habitant Soup.
But there is one can only, of the small and well-known Single-Serving Size.’

‘An American invention, by the way, the 3-S, let’s insert.’

The part of Marathe’s mind that hovered above and watched coldly, it could not know
whether Steeply was being deliberately parodically dense and annoying, to arouse Marathe
to some revealing passion. Marathe made his rotary gesture of impatience, slowly.
‘But OK,’ he said neutrally. ‘It is simple here. We both want the soup. So me, my
pleasure from eating the Habitant
soupe aux pois
has the price of your pain at not eating soup when you badly crave it.’ Marathe was
patting his pockets for something. ‘And the reverse, if you are who eats this serving.
By the U.S.A. genius of for each “
pursuivre le bonheur,
”
¹⁷²
then, who can decide who may receive this soup?’

Steeply stood with weight on one leg. ‘Example’s a bit oversimplified. We bid on the
soup, maybe. We negotiate. Maybe we divide the soup.’

‘No, for the ingenious Single-Serving Size of serving is notoriously for only one,
and we are both large and vigorous U.S.A. individuals who have spent the afternoon
watching huge men in pads and helmets hurl themselves at one another in the High Definition
of InterLace, and we are both ravenous for the satiation of a complete hot bowl’s
serving. Half the bowl would only torment this craving I have.’

The fast shadow of pain across the face of Steeply showed Marathe’s choice of example
was witty: the divorced U.S.A. man has much experience with the small size of Single-Serving
products. Marathe said:

‘OK. OK, yes, why should I, as the sacred individual, give you half of my soup? My
own
pleasure over torment is what is good, for I am a loyal U.S.A., a genius of this
individual desire.’

The bonfire slowly was filling out. Another cross of colored lights circled the airport
area of Tucson. Steeply’s movements of smoothing the wig and twisting fingers through
the snarls of hair became perhaps more abrupt and frustrated. Steeply said ‘Well whose
soup is it legally? Who actually bought the soup?’

Marathe shrugged. ‘Not relevant for my question. Suppose a third party, now unfortunately
deceased. He appears at our flat with a can of
soupe aux pois
to eat while watching recorded U.S.A. sporting and suddenly is clutching his heart
and falls to the carpeting deceased, holding the soup we are now both so wishing.’

‘Then we bid on the soup. Whoever’s got the most desire for the soup and is willing
to fork over the higher price buys out the other’s half, then the other just jogs
on down—jogs or rolls on down to Safeway and buys himself some more soup. Whoever’s
willing to put his money where his hunger is gets the dead guy’s soup.’

Marathe shook his head without any heat. ‘The Safeway store and bidding, these are
also not relevant to my question I hope the example of pea soup to raise. Which perhaps
this is a dull-witted question.’

Steeply was at the wig with both hands, for repair. Former perspiration had mashed
its form inward on one side, as well as small clots and small burrs from the falls
of his descent to the outcropping. Presumably there was no comb or brushes in his
small evening’s-wear purse. The rear of his dress was dirty. The straps of his prostheses’
brassiere dug cruelly into the meat of his back and shoulders. Again there was for
Marathe the picture of something soft being slowly throttled.

Steeply was responding ‘No, I know what you want to raise all right. You want to talk
politics. Scarcity and allocating and tough choices. All right. Politics we can understand.
All right. Politics we can discuss. I bet I know where you’re—you want to raise the
question of what prevents 310 million individual American happiness-pursuers from
all going around bonking each other over the head and taking each other’s soup. A
state of nature. My own pleasure and to hell with all the rest.’

Marathe had his handkerchief out. ‘What does this wish to mean, this
bonking?
’

‘Because this simplistic example shows just how far apart across the chasm our people’s
values are, friend.’ Steeply was saying this. ‘Because a certain basic amount of respect
for the wishes of other people is required, is in my interest, in order to preserve
a community where my own wishes and interests are respected. OK? My total and overall
happiness is maximized by respecting your individual sanctity and not simply kicking
you in the knee and running off with the soup.’ Steeply watched Marathe blow one nostril
into the handkerchief. Marathe was one of the rare types who did not examine the hankie
after he blew. Steeply said:

‘And but then I can anticipate somebody on your side of the chasm retorting with something
like, quote, Yes my very good
ami,
but what if your rival for the pleasurable soup is some individual
outside
your community, for example, you’ll say, let’s just make the example that it is a
hapless Canadian, foreign, “
un autre,
” separated from me by a chasm of history and language and value and deep respect
for individual freedom—then in this wholly random instance there would be no community-minded
constraints on my natural impulse to bonk your head and commandeer the desired soup,
since the poor Canadian is outside the equation of “
pursuivre le bonheur
” of each individual, since he is not a part of the community whose environment of
mutual respect I depend on for pursuing my interest of maximal pleasure-to-pain.’

Marathe, during this time, was smiling up and to the left, north, rolling his head
like a blind person. His favorite personal place of off-duty in the U.S.A.’s city
Boston was in the Public Garden of summer, a broad and treeless declivity leading
down to the
mare des canards,
the duck pond, a grassy wedge facing south and west so that the grass of the slope
turns pale green and then gold as the sun circles over the head, the pond’s water
cool and muddy green and overhung with impressionist willows, persons beneath the
willows, also pigeons, and ducks with tight emerald heads gliding in circles, their
eyes round stones, moving as if without effort, gliding upon the water as if legless
below. Like films’ idylls in cities the moment before the nuclear blast, in old films
of U.S.A. death and horror. He was missing this time in U.S.A. Boston MA of refilling
the pond for the ducks’ return, the willows greening, the winelight of a northern
sunset curving gently in to land without explosion. Children flew taut kites and adults
lay supine on the slope absorbing the suntan, eyes closed as if in concentration.
He was giving out a small and desolate smile, as of fatigue. His wrist’s watch was
unilluminated. Steeply threw a butt without turning away from Marathe to watch it
fall.

‘And you’ll accuse me of you’ll say I won’t only poke him in the eye and commandeer
the whole serving of soup for myself,’ Steeply said, ‘but will, after eating it, I’ll
give him the dirty bowl and spoon and maybe even the no-deposit Habitant can to have
to deal with, saddle him with my greed’s waste, all under some sham-arrangement of
quote Interdependence that’s really just a crude nationalist scheme to indulge my
own U.S. individual pleasure-lust without the complications or annoyance of considering
some neighbor’s own desires and interests.’

Marathe said ‘You will notice that I do not with sarcasm say “
And herrrrrrrrrre we go off together once more,
” which you enjoy saying.’

Steeply’s use of the body to shelter the lighting match for his smoking was not feminine,
either. His parody of Marathe’s accent sounded guttural and U.S.A.-Cajun with the
cigarette in the mouth. He looked up past the flame. ‘But no? Am I off-base?’

Marathe had an almost Buddhist way of studying the blanket on his lap. For some seconds
he behaved as if almost asleep, nodding very smally with the rise and fall of his
lungs. The ponderous rectangles of moving light within Tucson’s nightly spread were
‘Barges of Land’ ministering to nests of dumpsters in the deep part of night. Part
of Marathe always felt almost a desire to shoot persons who anticipated his responses
and inserted words and said they were from Marathe, not letting him speak. Marathe
suspected Steeply of knowing this, sensing this in Marathe. All two of Marathe’s older
brothers from childhood had engaged in this, arguing every side and silencing Rémy
by inserting his words. Both had kissed trains head-on before reaching marriageable
age;
¹⁷³
Marathe had been part of the audience for the death of the better one. Some of the
Barges of Land’s waste would be vectored into the Sonora region of Mexico, but much
would be shipped north for displacement-launch into the Convexity. Steeply was regarding
him.

‘No, Rémy? Am I off-base in terms of what you’d say?’

The smile around Marathe’s mouth cost him all his training in restraint. ‘The cans
containing Habitant, they say boldly “
Veuillez Recycler Ce Contenant
.” You are not false, maybe. But I think I am asking less for nations’ arguing and
more for the example of you and me only, we two, if we pretend we are both of your
U.S.A. type, each separate, both sacred, both desiring
soupe aux pois
. I am asking how is community and your respect part of my happiness in this moment,
with the soup, if I am a U.S.A. person?’

Steeply worked a finger under one strap of the brassiere to relieve the throttling
pressure. ‘I don’t get you.’

‘Well. We both crave badly the entire recyclable Single-Serving can of this Habitant.’
Marathe sniffed. ‘In my mind I know it is true that I must not simply make a bonking
of your head and take away the soup, because my overall happiness of pleasure of the
long term needs a community of “
rien de bonk
.”
¹⁷⁴
But this is the long term, Steeply. This is down the road of my happiness, this respecting
of you. How do I calculate this distant road of long term into my action of this moment,
now, with our dead comrade clutching the soup and both of us with spittle on our chins
as we regard the soup? My question is trying to say: if the most pleasure right now,
en ce moment,
is in the whole serving of Habitant, how is my self able to put aside this moment’s
desire to make bonk on you and take this soup? How am I able to think past this soup
to the future of soup down my road?’

‘In other words delayed gratification.’

‘Good. This is well. Delayed gratification. How is my U.S.A. type able in my mind
to calculate my long-term overall pleasure, then decide to sacrifice this intense
soup-craving of this moment to the long term and overall?’

Steeply sent out two hard tusks of smoke from the nostrils of his nose. His expression
was one of patience together with polite impatience. ‘I think it’s called simply being
a mature and adult American instead of a childish and immature American. A term we
might use might be “enlightened self-interest.” ’

‘
D’éclaisant
.’

Steeply, he did not smile back. ‘Enlightened. For example your example from before.
The little kid who’ll eat candy all day because it’s what tastes best at each individual
moment.’

‘Even if he knows inside his mind that it will hurt his stomach and rot his little
fangs.’

‘Teeth,’ Steeply corrected. ‘But see that here it can’t be a Fascist matter of screaming
at the kid or giving him electric shocks each time he overindulges in candy. You can’t
induce a moral sensibility the same way you’d train a rat. The kid has to learn by
his own experience how to learn to balance the short- and long-term pursuit of what
he wants.’

‘He must be
freely
enlightened to self.’

‘This is the crux of the educational system you find so appalling. Not to teach what
to desire. To teach how to be free. To teach how to make knowledgeable choices about
pleasure and delay and the kid’s overall down-the-road maximal interests.’

Marathe farted mildly into his cushion, nodding as if with thought.

‘And I know what you’ll say,’ Steeply said, ‘and no, the system isn’t perfect. There
is greed, there is crime, there are drugs and cruelty and ruin and infidelity and
divorce and suicide. Murder.’

‘To bonk the head.’

Steeply again dug at his strap. He would snap open the purse and then pause to move
the brassiere’s tight strap and then dig into the purse, which sounded femininely
full and cluttered. He said ‘But this is just the price. This is the price of the
free pursuit. Not everybody learns it in childhood, how to balance his interests.’

Marathe tried to envision thin men with horn-rim spectacles and natural-shoulder sportcoats
or white coats of the laboratory, carefully packing with clutter the purse of a field-operative
to create the female effect. Now Steeply had his pack of Flanderfumes cigarettes and
his finger of pinkie in the pack’s hole, evidently trying to gauge how many were left.
Venus was low in the northeast rim. When Marathe’s wife was born as an infant without
a skull, there had been at first suspicion that the cause was that her parents smoked
cigarettes as a habit. The light of the stars and moon had become sullen. The moon
had not yet set. It seemed as if sometimes the bonfire of youthful mafficking was
there and then when the eyes were averted in the next moment it was not there. Time
was passing in a silence. Steeply was using a nail to extract slowly one of the cigarettes.
Marathe, as a small child and with legs, had always disliked persons who made comments
about how much others smoked. Steeply now had learned here just how he must stand
to keep the match alive. Some wind had died down, but there were scattered chill gusts
that it seemed came from nowhere. Marathe sniffed so deeply that it became a sigh.
The struck match sounded loud; there was no echo.