Infinite Jest (5 page)

'Good lord she didn't exaggerate did she?’

'I tend to get beat up, sometimes, at the Academy, for stuff like that. Does this bear on why I'm here? That I'm a continentally ranked junior tennis player who can also recite great chunks of the dictionary, verbatim, at will, and tends to get beat up, and wears a bow tie? Are you like a specialist for gifted kids? Does this mean they think I'm gifted?’

SPFFFT. 'Here you are. Drink up.’

'Thanks. SHULGSHULGSPAHHH . . . Whew. Ah.’

'You were thirsty.’

'So then if I sit down you'll fill me in?’

'. . . professional conversationalist knows his mucous membranes, after all.’

'I might have to burp a little bit in a second, from the soda. I'm alerting you ahead of time.’

'Hal, you are here because I am a professional conversationalist, and your father has made an appointment with me, for you, to converse.’

'MYURP. Excuse me.’

Tap tap tap tap.

'SHULGSPAHHH.’

Tap tap tap tap.

'You're a professional conversationalist?’

T am, yes, as I believe I just stated, a professional conversationalist.’

'Don't start looking at your watch, as if I'm taking up valuable time of yours. If Himself made the appointment and paid for it the time's supposed to be mine, right? Not yours. And then but what's that supposed to mean, "professional conversationalist"? A conversationalist is just one who converses much. You actually charge a fee to converse much?’

'A conversationalist is also one who, I'm sure you'll recall, "excels in That's Webster's Seventh. That's not the O.E.D.’

Tap tap.

'I'm an O.E.D. man, Doctor. If that's what you are. Are you a doctor? Do you have a doctorate? Most people like to put their diplomas up, I notice, if they have credentials. And Webster's Seventh isn't even up-to-date. Webster's Eighth amends to "one who converses with much enthusiasm."

'Another Seven-Up?’

'Is Himself still having this hallucination I never speak? Is that why he put the Moms up to having me bike up here? Himself is my dad. We call him Himself. As in quote "the man Himself." As it were. We call my mother the Moms. My brother coined the term. I understand this isn't unusual. I understand most more or less normal families address each other internally by means of pet names and terms and monikers. Don't even think about asking me what my little internal moniker is.’

Tap tap tap.

'But Himself hallucinates, sometimes, lately, you ought to be apprised, was the thrust. I'm wondering why the Moms let him send me pedalling up here uphill against the wind when I've got a challenge match at 3:00 to converse with an enthusiast with a blank door and no diplomas anywhere in view.’

'I, in my small way, would like to think it had as much to do with me as with you. That my reputation preceded me.’

'Isn't that usually a pejorative clause?’

'I am wonderful fun to talk to. I'm a consummate professional. People leave my parlor in states. You are here. It's conversation-time. Shall we discuss Byzantine erotica?’

'How did you know I was interested in Byzantine erotica?’

'You seem persistently to confuse me with someone who merely hangs out a shingle with the word Conversationalist on it, and this operation with a fly-by-night one strung together with chewing gum and twine. You think I have no support staff? Researchers at my beck? You think we don't delve full-bore into the psyches of those for whom we've made appointments to converse? You don't think this fully accredited limited partnership would have an interest in obtaining data on what informs and stimulates our con-versees?’

'I know only one person who'd ever use full-bore in casual conversation.’

'There is nothing casual about a professional conversationalist and staff. We delve. We obtain, and then some. Young sir.’

'Okay, Alexandrian or Constantinian?’

'You think we haven't thoroughly researched your own connection with the whole current intra-Provincial crisis in southern Quebec?’

'What intra-Provincial crisis in southern Quebec? I thought you wanted to talk racy mosaics.’

'This is an upscale district of a vital North American metropolis, Hal. Standards here are upscale, and high. A professional conversationalist flat-out full-bore delves. Do you for one moment think that a professional plier of the trade of conversation would fail to probe beak-deep into your family's sordid liaison with the pan-Canadian Resistance's notorious M. DuPlessis and his malevolent but allegedly irresistible amanuensis-cum-operative, Luria P---------?’

'Listen, are you okay?’

'Do you?’

'I'm ten for Pete's sake. I think maybe your appointment calendar's squares got juggled. I'm the potentially gifted ten-year-old tennis and lexical prodigy whose mom's a continental mover and shaker in the prescriptive-grammar academic world and whose dad's a towering figure in optical and avant-garde film circles and single-handedly founded the Enfield Tennis Academy but drinks Wild Turkey at like 5:00 A.M. and pitches over sideways during dawn drills, on the courts, some days, and some days presents with delusions about people's mouths moving but nothing coming out. I'm not even up to/yet, in the condensed O.E.D., much less Quebec or malevolent Lurias.’

'. .. of the fact that photos of the aforementioned . . . liaison being leaked to Der Spiegel resulted in the bizarre deaths of both an Ottawan paparazzo and a Bavarian international-affairs editor, of an alpenstock through the abdomen and an ill-swallowed cocktail onion, respectively?’

'I just finished jew's-ear. I'm just starting on jew's-harp and the general theory of oral lyres. I've never even skied.’

'That you could dare to imagine we'd fail conversationally to countenance certain weekly shall we say maternal ... assignations with a certain unnamed bisexual bassoonist in the Albertan Secret Guard's tactical-bands unit?’

'Gee, is that the exit over there I see?’

'. . . that your blithe inattention to your own dear grammatical mother's cavortings with not one not two but over thirty Near Eastern medical attaches . . . ?’

'Would it be rude to tell you your mustache is askew?’

'. .. that her introduction of esoteric mnemonic steroids, stereo-chemically not dissimilar to your father's own daily hypodermic "mega-vitamin" supplement derived from a certain organic testosterone-regeneration compound distilled by the Jivaro shamen of the South-Central L.A. basin, into your innocent-looking bowl of morning Ralston....’

'As a matter of fact I'll go ahead and tell you your whole face is kind of running, sort of, if you want to check. Your nose is pointing at your lap.’

'That your quote-unquote "complimentary" Dunlop widebody tennis racquets' super-secret-formulaic composition materials of high-modulus-graphite-reinforced polycarbonate polybutylene resin are organochemically identical I say again identical to the gyroscopic balance sensor and mise-en-scène appropriation card and priapistic-entertainment cartridge implanted in your very own towering father's anaplastic cerebrum after his cruel series of detoxifications and convolution-smoothings and gastrectomy and prostatectomy and pancreatectomy and phalluctomy . . .’

Tap tap. 'SHULGSPAHH.’

'. .. could possibly escape the combined investigative attention of. .. ?’

'And it strikes me I've definitely seen that argyle sweater-vest before. That's Himself's special Interdependence-Day-celebratory-dinner argyle sweater-vest, that he makes a point of never having cleaned. I know those stains. I was there for that clot of veal marsala right there. Is this whole appointment a date-connected thing? Is this April Fools, Dad, or do I need to call the Moms and C.T.?’

'... who requires only daily evidence that you speak? That you recognize the occasional vista beyond your own generous Mondragonoid nose's fleshy tip?’

'You rented a whole office and face for this, but leave your old unmistakable sweater-vest on? And how'd you even get down here before me, with the Mercury up on blocks after you . . . did you fool C.T. into giving you the keys to a functional car?’

'Who used to pray daily for the day his own dear late father would sit, cough, open that bloody issue of the Tucson Citizen, and not turn that newspaper into the room's fifth wall? And who after all this light and noise has apparently spawned the same silence?’

'...’

'Who's lived his whole ruddy bloody cruddy life in five-walled rooms?' 'Dad, I've got a duly scheduled challenge match with Schacht in like twelve minutes, wind at my downhill back or no. I've got this oral-lyrologist who's going to be outside Brighton Best Savings wearing a predesignated necktie at straight-up five. I have to mow his lawn for a month for this interview. I can't just sit here watching you think I'm mute while your fake nose points at the floor. And are you hearing me talking, Dad? It speaks. It accepts soda and defines implore and converses with you.’

'Praying for just one conversation, amateur or no, that does not end in terror? That does not end like all the others: you staring, me swallowing?’

'Son?’

'...’

'Son?’

9 MAY — YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT

Another way fathers impact sons is that sons, once their voices have changed in puberty, invariably answer the telephone with the same locutions and intonations as their fathers. This holds true regardless of whether the fathers are still alive.

Because he left his dormitory room before 0600 for dawn drills and often didn't get back there until after supper, packing his book bag and knapsack and gear bag for the whole day, together with selecting his best-strung racquets — it all took Hal some time. Plus he usually collected and packed and selected in the dark, and with stealth, because his brother Mario was usually still asleep in the other bed. Mario didn't drill and couldn't play, and needed all the sleep he could get.

Hal held his complimentary gear bag and was putting different pairs of sweats to his face, trying to find the cleanest pair by smell, when the telephone console sounded. Mario thrashed and sat up in bed, a small hunched shape with a big head against the gray light of the window. Hal got to the console on the second ring and had the transparent phone's antenna out by the third.

His way of answering the phone sounded like 'Mmmyellow.’

'I want to tell you,' the voice on the phone said. 'My head is filled with things to say.’

Hal held three pairs of E.T.A. sweatpants in the hand that didn't hold the phone. He saw his older brother succumb to gravity and fall back limp against the pillows. Mario often sat up and fell back still asleep.

'I don't mind,' Hal said softly. 'I could wait forever.’

'That's what you think,' the voice said. The connection was cut. It had been Orin.

'Hey Hal?’

The light in the room was a creepy gray, a kind of nonlight. Hal could hear Brandt laughing at something Kenkle had said, off down the hall, and the clank of their janitorial buckets. The person on the phone had been O.

'Hey Hal?' Mario was awake. It took four pillows to support Mario's oversized skull. His voice came from the tangled bedding. 'Is it still dark out, or is it me?’

'Go back to sleep. It isn't even six.' Hal put the good leg into the sweatpants first.

'Who was it?’

Shoving three coverless Dunlop widebodies into the gear bag and zipping the bag partway up so the handles had room to stick out. Carrying all three bags back over to the console to deactivate the ringer on the phone. He said, 'No one you know, I don't think.’

YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT

Though only one-half ethnic Arab and a Canadian by birth and residence, the medical attache is nevertheless once again under Saudi diplomatic immunity, this time as special ear-nose-throat consultant to the personal physician of Prince Q---------, the Saudi Minister of Home Entertainment, here on northeastern U.S.A. soil with his legation to cut another mammoth deal with InterLace TelEntertainment. The medical attache turns thirty-seven tomorrow, Thursday, 2 April in the North American lunar Y.D.A.U. The legation finds the promotional subsidy of the North American calendar hilariously vulgar. To say nothing of the arresting image of the idolatrous West's most famous and self-congratulating idol, the colossal Libertine Statue, wearing some type of enormous adult-design diaper, a hilariously apposite image popular in the news photos of so many international journals.

The attache's medical practice being normally divided between Montreal and the Rub' al Khali, it is his first trip back to U.S.A. soil since completing his residency eight years ago. His duties here involve migrating with the Prince and his retinue between InterLace's two hubs of manufacture and dissemination in Phoenix, Arizona U.S.A. and Boston, Massachusetts U.S.A., respectively, offering expert E.N.T. assistance to the personal physician of Prince Q---------. The medical attache's particular expertise is the maxillofacial consequences of imbalances in intestinal flora. Prince Q---------(as would anyone who refuses to eat pretty much anything but Töblerone) suffers chronically from Candida albicans, with attendant susceptibilities to monilial sinusitis and thrush, the yeasty sores and sinal im-pactions of which require almost daily drainage in the cold and damp of early-spring Boston, U.S.A. A veritable artist, possessed of a deftness nonpareil with cotton swab and evacuation-hypo, the medical attache is known among the shrinking upper classes of petro-Arab nations as the DeBakey of maxillofacial yeast, his staggering fee-scale as wholly ad valorem.

Saudi consulting fees, in particular, are somewhere just past obscene, but the medical attache's duties on this trip are personally draining and sort of nauseous, and when he arrives back at the sumptuous apartments he had his wife sublet in districts far from the legation's normal Back Bay and Scotts-dale digs, at the day's end, he needs unwinding in the very worst way. A more than averagely devout follower of the North American sufism promulgated in his childhood by Pir Valayat, the medical attache partakes of neither kif nor distilled spirits, and must unwind without chemical aid. When he arrives home after evening prayers, he wants to look upon a spicy and 100% shari'a-halal dinner piping hot and arranged and steaming pleasantly on its attachable tray, he wants his bib ironed and laid out by the tray at the ready, and he wants the living room's teleputer booted and warmed up and the evening's entertainment cartridges already selected and arranged and lined up in dock ready for remote insertion into the viewer's drive. He reclines before the viewer in his special electronic recliner, and his black-veiled, ethnically Arab wife wordlessly attends him, loosening any constric-tive clothing, adjusting the room's lighting, fitting the complexly molded dinner tray over his head so that his shoulders support the tray and allow it to project into space just below his chin, that he may enjoy his hot dinner without having to remove his eyes from whatever entertainment is up and playing. He has a narrow imperial-style beard which his wife also attends and keeps free of detritus from the tray just below. The medical attache sits and watches and eats and watches, unwinding by visible degrees, until the angles of his body in the chair and his head on his neck indicate that he has passed into sleep, at which point his special electronic recliner can be made automatically to recline to full horizontal, and luxuriant silk-analog bedding emerges flowingly from long slots in the appliance's sides; and, unless his wife is inconsiderate and clumsy with the recliner's remote hand-held controls, the medical attache is permitted to ease effortlessly from unwound spectation into a fully relaxed night's sleep, still right there in the recumbent recliner, the TP set to run a recursive loop of low-volume surf and light rain on broad green leaves.