Infinite Jest Part 53

I tried briefly to picture Ortho Stice hoisting his bunk up and bolting it to the ceiling without waking Coyle. Our room's door remained ajar from Mario's exit with Coyle to find someone with a master key. Yardguard and Wagenknecht's heads popped in briefly and urged me to come have a look at The Darkness's ruined map and withdrew when they got no response. The second floor was pretty quiet; most of them were still dawdling at breakfast, awaiting some announcement on the weather and Quebecois squads. Snow hit the windows with a gritty sound. The angle of the wind had made a kind of whistle out of one corner of the subdorm building, and the whistling came and went.

Then I heard John Wayne's stride in the hall outside, light and even and easy on floors, the stride of a guy with stellar calf-development. I heard his low sigh. Then, though the door was too far behind me to see, for a moment or two I could somehow tell for sure that John Wayne's head was inside the open door. I could feel it clearly, almost painfully. He was looking down at me lying there on the Lindisfarne carpet. There was none of the gathering tension of a person deciding whether or not to speak. I could feel my throat's equipment move when I swallowed. John Wayne and I never had much to say to one another. There wasn't even hostility between us. He ate dinner with us at HmH every so often because he and the Moms were tight. The Moms made little attempt to disguise her attachment to Wayne. Now his breathing behind me was light and very even. No waste, complete utilization of each breath. 382 382 Of us three, it was Mario who had spent the most time with Himself, sometimes travelling with him for location-work. I had no idea what they spoke about together, or how openly. None of us had ever pressed Mario to say much about it. It occurred to me to wonder why this was so.

I decided to get up but then did not in fact get up. Orin was convinced that Himself was a virgin when he met the Moms in his late thirties. I find this pretty hard to believe. Orin will also grant that there's no doubt Himself was faithful to the Moms right up to the end, that his attachment to Orin's fiancee was not s.e.xual. I had a sudden and lucid vision of the Moms and John Wayne locked in a s.e.xual embrace of some kind. John Wayne had been involved with the Moms s.e.xually since roughly the second month after his arrival. They were both expatriates. I hadn't yet been able to identify a strong feeling one way or the other about the liaison, nor about Wayne himself, except for admiring his talent and total focus. I did not know whether Mario knew of the liaison, to say nothing of poor C.T.

It was impossible for me to imagine Himself and the Moms being explicitly s.e.xual together. I bet most children have this difficulty where their parents are concerned. s.e.x between the Moms and C.T. I imagined as both frenetic and weary, with a kind of doomed timeless Faulknerian feel to it. I imagined the Moms's eyes open and staring blankly at the ceiling the whole time. I imagined C.T. never once shutting up, talking around and around whatever was taking place between them. My coccyx had gone numb from the pressure of the floor through the thin carpet. Bain, graduate students, grammatical colleagues, j.a.panese fight-ch.o.r.eographers, the hairy-shouldered Ken N. Johnson, the Islamic M.D. Himself had found so especially torturing - these encounters were imaginable but somehow generic, mostly a matter of athleticism and flexibility, different configurations of limbs, the mood one more of cooperation than complicity or pa.s.sion. I tended to imagine the Moms staring expressionlessly at ceilings throughout. The complicit pa.s.sion would have come after, probably, with her need to be sure the encounter was hidden. Peterson-allusions notwithstanding, I wondered about some hazy connection between this pa.s.sion for hiddenness and the fact that Himself had made so many films t.i.tled Cage, Cage, and that the amateur player he became so attached to was the veiled girl, Orin's love. I wondered whether it was possible to lie supine and throw up without aspirating vomit or choking. The plumed spout of a whale. The tableau of John Wayne and my mother in my imagination was not very erotic. The image was complete and sharply focused but seemed stilted, as if composed. She reclines against four pillows, at an angle between seated and supine, staring upward, motionless and pale. Wayne, slim and brown-limbed, smoothly muscled, also completely motionless, lies over her, his untanned bottom in the air, his blank narrow face between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, his eyes unblinking and his thin tongue outthrust like a stunned lizard's. They stay just like that. and that the amateur player he became so attached to was the veiled girl, Orin's love. I wondered whether it was possible to lie supine and throw up without aspirating vomit or choking. The plumed spout of a whale. The tableau of John Wayne and my mother in my imagination was not very erotic. The image was complete and sharply focused but seemed stilted, as if composed. She reclines against four pillows, at an angle between seated and supine, staring upward, motionless and pale. Wayne, slim and brown-limbed, smoothly muscled, also completely motionless, lies over her, his untanned bottom in the air, his blank narrow face between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, his eyes unblinking and his thin tongue outthrust like a stunned lizard's. They stay just like that.

She wasn't dumb - she figured it was likely that they'd let her loose just to see where she'd go.

She went home. She went to the House. She got one of the last trains before they closed the T, probably. It took forever to get from Comm. Ave. down to Enfield Marine in her clogs and skirt in the snow, and melt soaked the veil and made it adhere to the features below. She'd been close to removing the veil to get away from the outside-linebacker of a federal lady anyway. She looked now just like a linen-pale version of what she really looked like. But there was no one about in the snow. She figured if she could speak with Pat M. Pat M. might be prevailed upon to put her in quarantine with Clenette and Yolanda, not let in no law. She could tell Pat about the wheelchairs, try to convince her to dismantle the ramp. The visibility was so bad she didn't see it til she cleared the Shed, the Middles.e.x County Sheriff's car, fiercely snow-tired, lights going bluely, parked idling in the roadlet outside the ramp, wipers on Occasional, a uniform at the wheel absently feeling his face.

He says 'I'm Mikey, alcoholic and addict and a sick f.u.c.k, you know what I'm saying?'

And they laugh and shout out 'You definitely are' as he stands there rocking the podium slightly, blurred a bit through the linen, smearing one side of his face with a laborer's hand as he tries to think what to say. It's another of these round-robin-speaker deals, each speaker picking the next from the smoky lunchtime crowd, jogging up to the fiberboard podium trying to think what to say, and how, for the five minutes each is allotted. The chairperson at the table up by the podium has a clock and a novelty-shop gong.

'Well,' he says, "well so I seen some of the old Mikey come back out yesterday, you know what I'm saying? f.u.c.king scared me to see it. What it was, I was going to take my kid down to the lanes and bowl a couple. With my kid. Who he just got the cast off. So I'm all happy and whatnot, got the day off, see the kid. Quality sober time with the kid. So on and so forth. So I'm all on the happy wagon and like that, about seeing the kid, you know what I'm saying? So, what, so I call up my c.u.n.t of a sister. He's living back with them, with Ma and my sister, so I'm calling up my sister to see can I come get the kid at such-and-such time and whatnot. Because you know how the judge said I got to get one of them's f.u.c.king consent to even see my kid. You know what I'm saying? Because of the restraining order on the old Mikey, from before. I got to get their permission. And I, what, accept that, I say OK, so I'm calling up all accepting and on the happy wagon for my sister to consent, and she out of the goodness of her heart she makes me wait while she says she's got to check it with Ma. And they consent, finally. And I, what, accept that, you know what I'm saying? And I say I was going to be there at such-and-such time and whatnot, and my sister says ain't I even going to say thank you? Like with the att.i.tude, you know what I'm saying? And I say 't the f.u.c.k, what, you want a f.u.c.king medal for letting me see my own kid? And the c.u.n.t hangs up up on me. Oh. f.u.c.king on me. Oh. f.u.c.king oh oh. Ever since the judge with the order, it's with the att.i.tude over there, the c.u.n.t and Ma both. So after she just hangs up on me a little of the old Mikey I think starts to come out and I go over there and yes all right I got to be honest I do I park on the gra.s.s of their f.u.c.king lawn, and I go up and go up and I see her and I'm like f.u.c.k you you c.u.n.t, and Ma's in the hall behind her in the door, I go f.u.c.king hang up on me why don't you, you should go for some f.u.c.king counselling you know what I'm saying? And they don't neither one of them like that verbal comment too much, right? The c.u.n.t almost starts laughing and goes, like, I'm I'm telling telling her her to go for counseling?' to go for counseling?'

Crowd-laughter.

'I mean I ain't exactly coming over there with long-term sobriety, right? And I accept that. But the c.u.n.t's got the hook on the door and she's going Who the f.u.c.k are you you to be telling to be telling me me to go for f.u.c.king counselling after the sick f.u.c.king little like stunt you and that to go for f.u.c.king counselling after the sick f.u.c.king little like stunt you and that bimbo bimbo pulled on that kid who only just now even got the cast off? Oh, and no sign of the f.u.c.king kid anywhere. Just her and Ma through the screen door, all over the place with the att.i.tude. And now they tell me to get the f.u.c.k off their porch, No they tell me, as in like Permission Denied, consent to see my own kid f.u.c.king pulled on that kid who only just now even got the cast off? Oh, and no sign of the f.u.c.king kid anywhere. Just her and Ma through the screen door, all over the place with the att.i.tude. And now they tell me to get the f.u.c.k off their porch, No they tell me, as in like Permission Denied, consent to see my own kid f.u.c.king refused refused. And the c.u.n.t still in her f.u.c.king bathrobe after noon, and Ma behind her half in the bag already and hanging on to the f.u.c.king wall. You know what I'm saying? My serenity's like: See See yaa! And I say up yaa! And I say up boat- boat- ayouse's a.s.ses, I'm here for my G.o.dd.a.m.n kid. And now my sister says she's going for the phone, and Ma's saying The f.u.c.k, get the f.u.c.k out, Mikey. And plus did I mention no sign of the kid, and I ain't to even like ayouse's a.s.ses, I'm here for my G.o.dd.a.m.n kid. And now my sister says she's going for the phone, and Ma's saying The f.u.c.k, get the f.u.c.k out, Mikey. And plus did I mention no sign of the kid, and I ain't to even like touch touch the screen door, not without consent. And I'm wanting to f.u.c.king kill somebody here, you know what I'm saying? And my sister's getting the antenna out on the phone, and so I go OK I'm f.u.c.king leaving, but I like grab my b.a.l.l.s at the both of them and go Eat me the boatayouse, you know what I'm saying? Cause now it's the old Mikey back, and now the screen door, not without consent. And I'm wanting to f.u.c.king kill somebody here, you know what I'm saying? And my sister's getting the antenna out on the phone, and so I go OK I'm f.u.c.king leaving, but I like grab my b.a.l.l.s at the both of them and go Eat me the boatayouse, you know what I'm saying? Cause now it's the old Mikey back, and now I I got with the att.i.tude now, also. I'm wanting to light my c.u.n.t of a sister up so bad I can't hardly see to get the truck off the lawn and leave. But and so and but so I'm driving back home, and I'm so mad I all of a sudden try and pray. And I try and pray, driving along and whatnot, and it comes to me I see irregarding of their f.u.c.ked-up att.i.tude I still need to go back and apologize irregardless, for grabbing my b.a.l.l.s at them, cause that's old f.u.c.king behavior. I see for my own sobriety's sake I need to go back and try and say I'm sorry. The thought of it just about makes me puke, you know what I'm - but I go back and pull the truck up out front on the street and pray and go back up on the porch, and I f.u.c.king apologize, and I go to my sister Please can I at least see the kid to see the cast off, and the c.u.n.t goes f.u.c.k you, get the f.u.c.k out, we don't accept your f.u.c.king apology. And no sign of Ma, and the f.u.c.king kid there's no sign of him, so I got to accept her word and don't even know for sure if the cast is even off. But why I needed to share I think is it scared me. got with the att.i.tude now, also. I'm wanting to light my c.u.n.t of a sister up so bad I can't hardly see to get the truck off the lawn and leave. But and so and but so I'm driving back home, and I'm so mad I all of a sudden try and pray. And I try and pray, driving along and whatnot, and it comes to me I see irregarding of their f.u.c.ked-up att.i.tude I still need to go back and apologize irregardless, for grabbing my b.a.l.l.s at them, cause that's old f.u.c.king behavior. I see for my own sobriety's sake I need to go back and try and say I'm sorry. The thought of it just about makes me puke, you know what I'm - but I go back and pull the truck up out front on the street and pray and go back up on the porch, and I f.u.c.king apologize, and I go to my sister Please can I at least see the kid to see the cast off, and the c.u.n.t goes f.u.c.k you, get the f.u.c.k out, we don't accept your f.u.c.king apology. And no sign of Ma, and the f.u.c.king kid there's no sign of him, so I got to accept her word and don't even know for sure if the cast is even off. But why I needed to share I think is it scared me. I I scared me, you know what I'm saying? I was at the counsellor's after and I told him I go I got to get some kind of hold on this f.u.c.king temper or I'm going to end up right back in front of the f.u.c.king judge for lighting somebody up again, you know what I'm saying? And G.o.d f.u.c.king forbid it should be somebody that's in my family, because I been that route once too many times already. And I go like Am I nuts, Dr., or what? Do I got a like death-wish or what? You know what I'm saying? The cast just only now finally comes off and I'm wanting to light up the f.u.c.king c.u.n.t that's got to scared me, you know what I'm saying? I was at the counsellor's after and I told him I go I got to get some kind of hold on this f.u.c.king temper or I'm going to end up right back in front of the f.u.c.king judge for lighting somebody up again, you know what I'm saying? And G.o.d f.u.c.king forbid it should be somebody that's in my family, because I been that route once too many times already. And I go like Am I nuts, Dr., or what? Do I got a like death-wish or what? You know what I'm saying? The cast just only now finally comes off and I'm wanting to light up the f.u.c.king c.u.n.t that's got to consent consent I should get closer than a hundred m.'s to the kid? Is it like I'm I should get closer than a hundred m.'s to the kid? Is it like I'm trying trying to set myself up for a drink or what exactly is it with this spring-loaded temper, if I'm sober? The temper and judge is why I f.u.c.king got sober in the first place. So what the f.u.c.k is this? Well f.u.c.k me. I'm just grateful I got some of that out. It's been up in my head, renting s.p.a.ce, you know what I'm saying? I see Vinnie's getting ready to f.u.c.king gong me. I want to hear from Tommy E. back there against the wall. Yo Tom to set myself up for a drink or what exactly is it with this spring-loaded temper, if I'm sober? The temper and judge is why I f.u.c.king got sober in the first place. So what the f.u.c.k is this? Well f.u.c.k me. I'm just grateful I got some of that out. It's been up in my head, renting s.p.a.ce, you know what I'm saying? I see Vinnie's getting ready to f.u.c.king gong me. I want to hear from Tommy E. back there against the wall. Yo Tommy! What are you, spanking the hog back there or what? But I'm just glad to be here. I just wanted to get some of that s.h.i.+t out.' What are you, spanking the hog back there or what? But I'm just glad to be here. I just wanted to get some of that s.h.i.+t out.'

The man's pants' crease was gone at the knee and his Cardin topcoat looked slept in.

'It was good of you to grant me an eas.e.m.e.nt.'

Pat M. tried to recross her legs and shrugged. 'You said you weren't here professionally.'

'Good of you to believe me.' The a.s.sistant District Attorney for Suffolk County's 4th Circuit up on the near North Sh.o.r.e's hat was a good dress Stetson with a feather in the band. He held it up in his lap by the brim and slowly rotated it by moving his fingers along the brim. He'd re-crossed his legs twice. 'We met you and Mars at the Marblehead Regatta for the McDonald's House thing for children, not this summer but either the sum-'

'I know who you are.' Pat's husband wasn't a celebrity but knew a lot of local celebrities, from the mint-reconditioned-sports-car upscale network around Boston.

'Well it's good of you. I'm here about one of your residents.'

'But not professionally,' Pat said. It wasn't a question or verification. She was cool steel when it came to protecting the residents and House. Then back home in her own home she was a shattered husk of a wreck.

'Frankly I'm not sure why I am here. You're just down the hill from the hospital. I've been up at Saint Elizabeth's off and on for three days. Perhaps I need to simply air this. The 5th District boys - the P.D.s - speak well of the place. Your House here. Perhaps I need simply to share this, to work up the nerve. My sponsor's no help. He's simply said do it if you want to have any hope of things getting better.'

Anything less than a combination thoroughgoing professional and AA-longtimer would have at least hiked an eyebrow at one of the most powerful and remorseless constables in three counties saying sponsor sponsor.

'It's Phob-Comp-Anon,' the A.D.A. said. 'I went through Choices 383 383 last winter and have been working a program of recovery in Phob-Comp-Anon a day at a time to the best of my ability ever since then.' last winter and have been working a program of recovery in Phob-Comp-Anon a day at a time to the best of my ability ever since then.'

'I see.'

'It's Tooty,' the A.D.A. said. He did a pause with his eyes closed and then smiled, still with his eyes closed. 'It is, rather, me, and my enmeshment-issues with Tooty's... condition.'

Phob-Comp-Anon was a decade-old 12-Step splinter from Al-Anon, for codependency-issues surrounding loved ones who were cripplingly phobic or compulsive, or both.

'It's a long story and not a particularly interesting one, I'm sure,' the A.D.A. said. 'Suffice to say that Tooty's been in torment over some oral-dental-hygienic-violation issues that have their roots we're discovering in some issues from a childhood whose dysfunctionality we - well, which she'd been in denial about for quite some time. It doesn't matter what. My program's my own. The hiding the car keys, the cutting off her credit with different dentists, the checking the wastebaskets for new brush-wrappers five times an hour - my unmanageability's my own, and I'm doing what I can, day by day, to let go and detach with love.'

'I think I understand.'

'I'm working Nine, now.'

Pat said 'The Ninth Step.'

The A.D.A. reversed the hat's rotation by moving his fingers in the opposite direction along the brim.

'I'm trying to make direct amends to whosoever my Fourth- and Eighth-Step work's revealed I've harmed, except in cases where to do so would injure them or others.'

A tiny spiritual slip from Pat in the form of a patronizing smile. 'I have a nodding acquaintance with Nine myself.'

The A.D.A. was barely there, his eyes fixed and dilated. The remorselessly ingathered eyebrow-angle Pat had always seen in his photos was completely reversed. The brows now formed a little peaked roof of pathos.

'One of your residents,' he said. 'A Mr. Gately, Court-Remanded out of the 5th Circuit, Peabody I believe. Or Staff counselor, alumni, some status.'

Pat made a kind of exaggerated innocent trying-to-place-the-name-type face.

The A.D.A. said 'It doesn't matter. I'm aware of your constraints. I want nothing from you on him. It's him I've been up at Saint Elizabeth's to see.'

Pat allowed herself one slightly flared nostril at this news.

The A.D.A. leaned forward, hat rotating between his calves, elbows on knees in the odd defecatory posture men used to try to communicate earnestness in their sharing. 'I'm told - I owe the - Mr. Gately - an amend. I need to make an amend to Mr. Gately.' He looked up. 'You too - this remains within these walls, as if it were my anonymity. All right?'

'Yes.'

'It doesn't matter what for. I blamed the - I've harbored a resentment, against this Gately, concerning an incident I'd considered responsible for making Tooty's phobia reflare. It doesn't matter. The specifics, or his culpability or exposure to prosecution in the incident - I've come to believe these don't matter. I've harbored this resentment. The kid's picture's been up on my Priority-board with the pictures of far more objectively important threats to the public weal. I've been biding my time, waiting to get him. This latest incident - no, don't say it, you needn't say a thing - seemed like just the opening. My last chance went federal and then fizzled.'

Pat allowed herself a very slightly puzzled forehead.

The man waved the hat. 'It doesn't matter. I've hated, hated hated this man. You know that Enfield's Suffolk County. This incident with the Canadian a.s.sault, the alleged firearm, the witnesses who can't depose because of their own exposure.... My sponsor, my entire Group - they say if I act on the resentment I'm doomed. I'll get no relief. It won't help Tooty. Tooty's lips will still be white pulp from the peroxide, her enamel in tatters from the constant irrational brus.h.i.+ng and brus.h.i.+ng and this man. You know that Enfield's Suffolk County. This incident with the Canadian a.s.sault, the alleged firearm, the witnesses who can't depose because of their own exposure.... My sponsor, my entire Group - they say if I act on the resentment I'm doomed. I'll get no relief. It won't help Tooty. Tooty's lips will still be white pulp from the peroxide, her enamel in tatters from the constant irrational brus.h.i.+ng and brus.h.i.+ng and brus.h.i.+ng and brus.h.i.+ng and -' he clamped his fine clean hand over his mouth and produced a high-pitched noise that frankly gave Pat the howlers, his right eyelid twitching. -' he clamped his fine clean hand over his mouth and produced a high-pitched noise that frankly gave Pat the howlers, his right eyelid twitching.

He took several breaths. 'I need to let it go. I've come to believe that. Not just the prosecution - that's the easy part. I've already tossed the file, though whatever civil liability the - Mr. Gately might face is another matter, not my concern. It's so d.a.m.nably ironic ironic. The man's going to two-step out of at the very least a probation-violation and prosecution on all his old highly highly convictable charges because I have to pitch the case, for the sake of my own recovery, I, who wanted nothing so much as to see this man locked down in a cell with some psychopathic cellmate for the rest of his natural life, who shook my fist at the ceiling and convictable charges because I have to pitch the case, for the sake of my own recovery, I, who wanted nothing so much as to see this man locked down in a cell with some psychopathic cellmate for the rest of his natural life, who shook my fist at the ceiling and vowed vowed -' and again the noise, this time m.u.f.fled by the fine hat and so less well-m.u.f.fled, his shoes pounding a little on the carpet in rage so that Pat's dogs raised their heads and looked quizzically at him, and the epileptic one had a very small loud-noise seizure. -' and again the noise, this time m.u.f.fled by the fine hat and so less well-m.u.f.fled, his shoes pounding a little on the carpet in rage so that Pat's dogs raised their heads and looked quizzically at him, and the epileptic one had a very small loud-noise seizure.

'I hear you saying this is very hard but you've decided what you need to do.'

'Worse,' the A.D.A. said, blotting his brow with an unfolded handkerchief. 'I have to make an amend, my sponsor's said. If I want the growth that promises real relief. I have to make direct amends, put out my hand and say that I'm sorry and ask the man's forgiveness for my own failure to forgive. This is the only way I'll be able to forgive him. And I can't detach with love from Tooty's phobic compulsion until I've forgiven the b- the man I've blamed in my heart.'

Pat looked him in the eye. 'Of course I can't say I've tossed the Canadian case's file, I needn't go that far they say. That would expose me to conflict of interest - the irony irony - and could hurt Tooty, if my position's threatened. I've been told I can simply let him simmer on that until time pa.s.ses and nothing moves forward.' He raised his own eyes. 'Which means you cannot tell anyone either. Declining to prosecute for personal spiritual reasons - the office - it would be hard for others to understand. This is why I've come to you in explicit confidence.' - and could hurt Tooty, if my position's threatened. I've been told I can simply let him simmer on that until time pa.s.ses and nothing moves forward.' He raised his own eyes. 'Which means you cannot tell anyone either. Declining to prosecute for personal spiritual reasons - the office - it would be hard for others to understand. This is why I've come to you in explicit confidence.'

'I hear your request and I'll honor it.'

'But listen. I can't do it. Cannot. I've sat outside that hospital room saying the Serenity Prayer over and over and praying for willingness and thinking of my own spiritual interests and believing this amend is my Higher Power's will for my own growth and I haven't been able to go in. I go and sit paralyzed outside the room for several hours and drive home and pry Tooty away from the sink. It can't go on. I have to look that rotten - no, evil, evil, I'm convinced in my heart, that son of a b.i.t.c.h is I'm convinced in my heart, that son of a b.i.t.c.h is evil evil and and deserves deserves to be removed from the community. I have to walk in there and extend my hand and tell him I've wished him ill and blamed him and ask for forgiveness - to be removed from the community. I have to walk in there and extend my hand and tell him I've wished him ill and blamed him and ask for forgiveness - him him -if you -if you knew knew what what sick, twisted, sick, twisted, s.a.d.i.s.tically s.a.d.i.s.tically evil evil and and sick sick thing he did to us, to her - and ask him for forgiveness. Whether he forgives or not is not the issue. It's my own side of the street I need to clean.' thing he did to us, to her - and ask him for forgiveness. Whether he forgives or not is not the issue. It's my own side of the street I need to clean.'

'It sounds very, very hard,' Pat said.

The fine hat was almost spinning between the man's calves, the pantcuffs of which had been pulled up in the defecatory forward lean to reveal socks that weren't, it seemed, both quite the same texture of wool. The mismatched socks spoke to Pat's heart more than anything else.

'I don't even know why I came here,' he said. 'I couldn't simply leave again and drive home. Yesterday she'd been at her tongue with one of those old NoCoat LinguaSc.r.a.per appliances until it bled. I can't go home and look on that again without having cleaned house.'

'I hear you.'

'And you were just down the hill.'

'I understand.'

'I don't expect help or counsel. I already believe I have to do it. I've accepted the injunction to do it. I believe I have no choice. But I can't do it. I haven't been able to do it.'

'Willing, maybe.'

'Haven't yet been willing. Yet. I wish to emphasize yet yet.'

20 NOVEMBER YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT IMMEDIATELY PRE-FUNDRAISER-EXHIBITION-FeTE GAUDEAMUS IGITUR GAUDEAMUS IGITUR.

Usually, part of the experience of having the place you live in throw a gala is watching different people arrive for the festivities - the Warshavers, the Gartons and Peltasons and Prines, the Chins, the Middlebrooks and Gelbs, an incidental Lowell, the Buckmans in their claret-colored Volvo driven by their silent grown son who you never see except when he's driving Kirk and Binnie Buckman someplace. Dr. Hickle and his creepy niece. The Chawafs and Heavens. The Reehagens. The palsied and megawealthy Mrs. Warshaver with her pair of designer canes. The Donagan brothers from Svelte Nail. But usually we never get to see them arriving, the friends and patrons of E.T.A., for the Fundraising exhibition and gala. Usually while they're arriving and getting greeted by Tavis we're all down in the lockers, dressing and stretching, getting ready to exhibit. Getting shaved and taped by Loach, etc.

It must usually be an unusual occasion for the guests, too, because for the first few hours they're there to watch us play - they're all audience - then at some point with the last couple matches winding down the guys in white jackets with trays start appearing in Comm.-Ad., and the gala starts, and then it's the guests who become the partic.i.p.ants and performers.

Dressing and stretching, wrapping grips with Gauze-Tex or filling a pouch with fuller's earth (Coyle, Freer, Stice, Traub) or sawdust (Wagenknecht, Chu), getting taped, those in p.u.b.erty getting shaved and taped. A ritual. Even the conversation, usually, such as it is, has a timeless ceremonial aspect. John Wayne hunched as always on the bench before his locker with his towel like a hood over his head, running a coin back and forth over the backs of his fingers. Shaw pinching the flesh between his thumb and first finger, acupressure for a headache. Everyone had gone into their like autopilot ritual. Possalthwaite's sneakers were pigeon-toed under a stall door. Kahn was trying to spin a tennis ball on his finger like a basketball. At the sink, Eliot Kornspan was blowing out his sinuses with hot water; no one else was anywhere near the sink. A certain number of hysterical pre-compet.i.tion rumors about the Quebec Jr. Team and the severity of the weather circulated and were refuted and s.h.i.+fted antigens and returned. You could hear the high-register end of the wind even down here. The Csikszentmihalyi kid was doing a kind of piaffer in place, his knees. .h.i.tting his chest, stretching his hip-flexors out. Troeltsch sat up against his locker near Wayne, wearing a disconnected headset and broadcasting his own match in advance. There were fart-accusations and -denials. Rader snapped a towel at Wagenknecht, who liked to stand for long periods of time bent at the waist with his head against his knees. Arslanian sat very still in a corner, blindfolded in what was either an ascot or a very fey necktie, his head c.o.c.ked in the att.i.tude of the blind. It was unclear whether B squads would even get to play; no one was sure how many courts the M.I.T. Union had inside. Rumors flew this way and that. Michael Pemulis was nowhere to be seen since early this A.M., at which time Anton Doucette said he'd seen Pemulis quote 'lurking' out by the West House dumpsters looking quote 'anxiously depressed.'

Then a small but univocal cheer went up from some of the players when Otis P. Lord appeared at the door, his cadaverous dad escorting him, O.P.L. out of post-op and pale but looking his old self, with just a thin little choker-width bandage of gauze around his neck from the monitor's removal and an odd ellipse of dry red skin around his mouth and nostrils. He came in and shook a few hands and used the stall next to Postal Weight and left; he wasn't playing today.

J. L. Struck was applying an astringent to areas of his jaw.

An hysterical rumor that the Quebec players had been spotted coming down a ramp out of a charter-bus in the main lot and were by all appearances not the Quebec J.D.C. and -W.C. squads but some sort of Special-Olympicish Quebec adult wheelchair wheelchair -tennis contingent - this rumor flew wildly around the locker room and then died out when a couple of the sub-14's who burned nervous energy by scampering around checking rumors scampered out and up the stairs to check the rumor and failed to return. -tennis contingent - this rumor flew wildly around the locker room and then died out when a couple of the sub-14's who burned nervous energy by scampering around checking rumors scampered out and up the stairs to check the rumor and failed to return.

Across the wall on the Female side we could easily hear Thode and Donni Stott invoking Camilla, G.o.ddess of speed and light step. Thode had had an hysterical tantrum after breakfast because Poutrincourt hadn't showed for the Females' pre-match Staff thing and looked to be AWOL. Loach et al. had outfitted Ted Schacht with a complex knee-brace with jointed aluminum struts down both sides and a coin-sized hole in the elastic over the kneecap for dermal ventilation, and Schacht was lumbering around between the stalls and the locker with his arms straight out and his weight on his heels pretending to walk like Frankenstein. Several people talked to themselves at their lockers. Barry Loach was down on one knee shaving Hal's left ankle for tape. A couple of us remarked how Hal wasn't eating the usual customary Snickers bar or AminoPal. Hal had his hands on Loach's shoulders as the tape went on. A match-wrap is two horizontal layers just above the malleolus k.n.o.b-thing, then straight down and four times around the tarsus just in front of the joint, so there's a big gap for flexion of the joint, but a compacting and supportive wrap. Then Loach puts a liner-sock and a wick-sock over the tape, then slides on the little inflatable AirCast deal and pumps it to the right pressure, checking with a little gauge, and Velcros it just tight enough for support plus max-flexion. Hal was on the bench with his hands on Loach's shoulders through the whole little routine. Everybody's had his hands on Loach's shoulders at one time or another. Hal's shave and wrap take four minutes. Schacht's knee and Fran Unwin's hamstring thing each take over ten. Wayne's quarter looked like it was dancing on his knuckles. Because of the towel over his head all you could see was a very thin oval section of his face, like an almond on its end. Wayne got to have a small disk-player in his locker, and Joni Mitch.e.l.l was playing, which n.o.body ever minded because he kept it very low. Stice was blowing a purple bubble. Freer was trying to touch his toes. Traub and Whale, also on the wrap-bench, later said Hal was being weird. Like they said asking Loach if the pre-match locker room ever gave him a weird feeling, occluded, electric, as if all this had been done and said so many times before it made you feel it was recorded, they all in here existed basically as Fourier Transforms of postures and little routines, locked down and stored and call-uppable for rebroadcast at specified times. What Traub heard as Fourier Transforms Fourier Transforms Whale heard as Whale heard as Furrier Transforms Furrier Transforms. But also, as a consequence, erasable, Hal had said. By whom? Hal before a match usually had a wide-eyed ingenuish anxiety of someone who'd never been in a situation even remotely like this before. His face today had a.s.sumed various expressions ranging from distended hilarity to scrunched grimace, expressions that seemed unconnected to anything that was going on. The word was that Tavis and Scht.i.tt had chartered three buses to take the squads to an indoor venue Mrs. Inc had had alumnus Corbett Th-Thorp call in mammoth favors to arrange - several mostly unused courts somewhere in the deep-brain tissue of the M.I.T. Student Union - and that the whole gala would be moved over to the Student Union, and that the Quebec team and most of the guests were being contacted by cellular about the cancellation of the previous cancellation and the change in venue, and that those guests who didn't hear about the change would ride in the buses with the players and staff, some of them in formal- and evening-wear, probably, the guests. Traub also says he also heard Hal use the word moribund, moribund, but Whale couldn't confirm. Schacht entered a stall and drove the latch home with a certain purposeful sound that produced that momentary gunslinger-enters-saloon-type hush throughout the locker room. n.o.body in the vicinity could say they heard Barry Loach respond one way or another to any of the strange moody things Hal was saying as Loach locked down the ankle for high-level play. Wagenknecht apparently really did fart. but Whale couldn't confirm. Schacht entered a stall and drove the latch home with a certain purposeful sound that produced that momentary gunslinger-enters-saloon-type hush throughout the locker room. n.o.body in the vicinity could say they heard Barry Loach respond one way or another to any of the strange moody things Hal was saying as Loach locked down the ankle for high-level play. Wagenknecht apparently really did fart.

The consensus among E.T.A.s is that Head Trainer Barry Loach resembles a wingless fly-blunt and scuttly, etc. One E.T.A. tradition consists of Big Buddies recounting to new or very young Little Buddies the saga of Loach and how he ended up as an elite Head Trainer even though he doesn't have an official degree in Training or whatever from Boston College, which is where he'd gone to school. In outline form, the saga goes that Loach grew up as the youngest child of an enormous Catholic family, the parents of which were staunch Catholics of the old school of extremely staunch Catholicism, and that Mrs. Loach (as in the mom)'s life's most fervent wish was that one of her countless children would enter the R.C. clergy, but that the eldest Loach boy had done a two-year U.S.N. bit and had gotten de-mapped early on in the Brazilian O.N.A.N./U.N. joint action of Y.T.M.P.; and that within weeks of the wake the next oldest Loach boy had died of ciquatoxic food-poisoning eating tainted blackfin grouper; and the next oldest Loach, Therese, through a series of adolescent misadventures had ended up in Atlantic City NJ as one of the women in sequined leotards and high heels who carries a large posterboard card with the Round # on it around the ring between rounds of professional fights, so that hopes for Therese becoming a Carmelite dimmed considerably; and on down the line, one Loach falling helplessly in love and marrying right out of high school, another burning only to play the cymbals with a first-rate philharmonic (now cras.h.i.+ng away with the Houston P.O.). And so on, until there was just one other Loach child and then Barry Loach, who was the youngest and also totally under Mrs. L.'s thumb, emotionally; and that young Barry had breathed a huge sigh of relief when his older brother - always a pious and contemplative and big-hearted kid, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with abstract love and an innate faith in the indwelling goodness of all men's souls - began to show evidence of a true spiritual calling to a life of service in the R.C. clergy, and ultimately entered Jesuit seminary, removing an enormous weight from his younger brother's psyche because young Barry - ever since he first slapped a Band-Aid on an X-Men figure - felt his true calling was not to the priesthood but to the liniment-and-adhesive ministry of professional athletic training. Who, finally, can say the whys and whences of each man's true vocation? And then so Barry was a Training major or whatever at B.C., and by all accounts proceeding satisfactorily toward a degree, when his older brother, quite far along toward getting ordained or frocked or whatever as a licensed Jesuit, suffered at age twenty-five a sudden and dire spiritual decline in which his basic faith in the innate indwelling goodness of men like spontaneously combusted and disappeared - and for no apparent or dramatic reason; it just seemed as if the brother had suddenly contracted a black misanthropic spiritual outlook the way some twenty-five-year-old men contract Sanger-Brown's ataxia or M.S., a kind of degenerative Lou Gehrig's Disease of the spirit - and his interest in serving man and G.o.d-in-man and nurturing the indwelling Christ in people through Jesuitical pursuits underwent an understandable nosedive, and he began to do nothing but sit in his dormitory room at St. John's Seminary - right near Enfield Tennis Academy, coincidentally, on Foster Street in Brighton off Comm. Ave., right by the Archdiocese H.Q. or whatever - sitting there trying to pitch playing-cards into a wastebasket in the middle of the floor, not going to cla.s.ses or vespers or reading his Hours, and talking frankly about giving up the vocation altogether, which all had Mrs. Loach just about prostrate with disappointment, and had young Barry suddenly re-weighted with dread and anxiety, because if his brother bailed out of the clergy it would be nearly irresistibly inc.u.mbent on Barry, the very last Loach, to give up his true vocation of splints and flexion and enter seminary himself, to keep his staunch and beloved Mom from dying of disappointment. And so a series of personal interviews with the spiritually necrotic brother took place, Barry having to station himself on the other side of the playing-cards' wastebasket so as even to get the older brother's attention, trying to talk the brother down from the misanthropic spiritual ledge he was on. The spiritually ill brother was fairly cynical about Barry Loach's reasons for trying to talk him down, seeing as how both men knew that Barry's own career-dreams were on the line here as well; though the brother smiled sardonically and said he'd come to expect little better than self-interested #1-looking-out from human beings anyway, since his practic.u.m work out among the human flocks in some of Boston's nastier downtown venues - the impossibility of conditions-changing, the ingrat.i.tude of the low-life homeless addicted and mentally ill flocks he served, and the utter lack of compa.s.sion and basic help from the citizenry at large in all Jesuitical endeavors - had killed whatever spark of inspired faith he'd had in the higher possibilities and perfectibility of man; so he opined what should he expect but that his own little brother, no less than the coldest commuter pa.s.sing the outstretched hands of the homeless and needy at Park Street Station, should be all-too-humanly concerned with nothing but the care and feeding of Numero Uno. Since a basic absence of empathy and compa.s.sion and taking-the-risk-to-reach-out seemed to him now an ineluctable part of the human character. Barry Loach was understandably way out his depth on the theological turf of like Apologia and the redeemability of man - though he was able to relieve a slight hitch in the brother's toss that was stressing his card-throwing arm's flexor carpi ulnaris muscle and so to up the brother's card-in-wastebasket percentage significantly - but he was not only desperate to preserve his mother's dream and his own indirectly athletic ambitions at the same time, he was actually rather a spiritually upbeat guy who just didn't buy the brother's sudden despair at the apparent absence of compa.s.sion and warmth in G.o.d's supposed self-mimetic and divine creation, and he managed to engage the brother in some rather heated and high-level debates on spirituality and the soul's potential, not that much unlike Alyosha and Ivan's conversations in the good old Brothers K., Brothers K., though probably not nearly as erudite and literary, and nothing from the older brother even approaching the carcinogenic acerbity of Ivan's Grand Inquisitor scenario. though probably not nearly as erudite and literary, and nothing from the older brother even approaching the carcinogenic acerbity of Ivan's Grand Inquisitor scenario.

In outline, it eventually boiled down to this: a desperate Barry Loach - with Mrs. L. now on 25 mg. of daily Ativan 384 384 and just about camped out in front of the candle-lighting apse of the Loach's parish church - Loach challenges his brother to let him prove somehow - risking his own time, Barry's, and maybe safety somehow - that the basic human character wasn't as unempathetic and necrotic as the brother's present depressed condition was leading him to think. After a few suggestions and rejections of bets too way-out even for Barry Loach's desperation, the brothers finally settle on a, like, experimental challenge. The spiritually despondent brother basically challenges Barry Loach to not shower or change clothes for a while and make himself look homeless and disreputable and louse-ridden and clearly in need of basic human charity, and to stand out in front of the Park Street T-station on the edge of the Boston Common, right alongside the rest of the downtown community's lumpen dregs, who all usually stood there outside the T-station stemming change, and for Barry Loach to hold out his unclean hand and instead of stemming change simply ask pa.s.sersby to touch him. Just to touch him. Viz. extend some basic human warmth and contact. And this Barry does. And does. Days go by. His own spiritually upbeat const.i.tution starts taking blows to the solar plexus. It's not clear whether the verminousness of his appearance had that much to do with it; it just turned out that standing there outside the station doors and holding out his hand and asking people to touch him ensured that just about the last thing any pa.s.serby in his right mind would want to do was touch him. It's possible that the respectable citizenry with their bookbags and cellulars and dogs with little red sweater-vests thought that sticking one's hand way out and crying 'Touch me, just touch me, and just about camped out in front of the candle-lighting apse of the Loach's parish church - Loach challenges his brother to let him prove somehow - risking his own time, Barry's, and maybe safety somehow - that the basic human character wasn't as unempathetic and necrotic as the brother's present depressed condition was leading him to think. After a few suggestions and rejections of bets too way-out even for Barry Loach's desperation, the brothers finally settle on a, like, experimental challenge. The spiritually despondent brother basically challenges Barry Loach to not shower or change clothes for a while and make himself look homeless and disreputable and louse-ridden and clearly in need of basic human charity, and to stand out in front of the Park Street T-station on the edge of the Boston Common, right alongside the rest of the downtown community's lumpen dregs, who all usually stood there outside the T-station stemming change, and for Barry Loach to hold out his unclean hand and instead of stemming change simply ask pa.s.sersby to touch him. Just to touch him. Viz. extend some basic human warmth and contact. And this Barry does. And does. Days go by. His own spiritually upbeat const.i.tution starts taking blows to the solar plexus. It's not clear whether the verminousness of his appearance had that much to do with it; it just turned out that standing there outside the station doors and holding out his hand and asking people to touch him ensured that just about the last thing any pa.s.serby in his right mind would want to do was touch him. It's possible that the respectable citizenry with their bookbags and cellulars and dogs with little red sweater-vests thought that sticking one's hand way out and crying 'Touch me, just touch me, please please' was some kind of new stem-type argot for 'Lay some change on me,' because Barry Loach found himself hauling in a rather impressive daily total of $ - significantly more than he was earning at his work-study job wrapping ankles and sterilizing dental prostheses for Boston College lacrosse players. Citizens found his pitch apparently just touching enough to give him $; but B. Loach's brother - who often stood there in collarless mufti up against the plastic jamb of the T-station's exit, slouched and smirking and idly shuffling a deck of cards in his hands - was always quick to point out the spastic delicacy with which the patrons dropped change or $ into Barry Loach's hand, these kind of bullwhip-motions or jagged in-and-outs like they were trying to get something hot off a burner, never touching him, and they rarely broke stride or even made eye-contact as they tossed alms B.L.'s way, much less ever getting their hand anywhere close to contact with B.L.'s disreputable hand. The brother not unreasonably nixed the accidental contact of one commuter who'd stumbled as he tried to toss a quarter and then let Barry break his fall, not to mention the bipolarly ill bag-lady who got Barry Loach in a headlock and tried to bite his ear off near the end of the third week of the Challenge. Barry L. refused to concede defeat and misanthropy, and the Challenge dragged on week after week, and the older brother got bored eventually and stopped coming and went back to his room and waited for the St. John's Seminary administration to give him his walking papers, and Barry Loach had to take Incompletes in the semester's Training courses, and got canned from his work-study job for not showing up, and he went through weeks and then months of personal spiritual crisis as pa.s.serby after pa.s.serby interpreted his appeal for contact as a request for cash and subst.i.tuted abstract loose change for genuine fleshly contact; and some of the T-station's other disreputable stem-artists became intrigued by Barry's pitch - to say nothing of his net receipts - and started themselves to take up the cry of 'Touch me, please, please, someone!, someone!,' which of course further compromised Barry Loach's chances of getting some citizen to interpret his request literally and lay hands on him in a compa.s.sionate and human way; and Loach's own soul began to sprout little fungal patches of necrotic rot, and his upbeat view of the so-called normal and respectable human race began to undergo dark revision; and when the other scuzzy and shunned stem-artists of the downtown district treated him as a compadre and spoke to him in a collegial way and offered him warming drinks from brown-bagged bottles he felt too disillusioned and coldly alone to be able to refuse, and thus started to fall in with the absolute silt at the very bottom of the metro Boston socioeconomic duck-pond. And then what happened with the spiritually infirm older brother and whither he fared and what happened with his vocation never gets resolved in the E.T.A. Loach-story, because now the focus becomes all Loach and how he was close to forgetting - after all these months of revulsion from citizens and his getting any kind of nurturing or empathic treatment only from homeless and addicted stem-artists - what a shower or was.h.i.+ng machine or a ligamental manipulation even were, much less career-ambitions or a basically upbeat view of indwelling human goodness, and in fact Barry Loach was dangerously close to disappearing forever into the fringes and dregs of metro Boston street life and spending his whole adult life homeless and louse-ridden and stemming in the Boston Common and drinking out of brown paper bags, when along toward the end of the ninth month of the Challenge, his appeal - and actually also the appeals of the other dozen or so cynical stem-artists right alongside Loach, all begging for one touch of a human hand and holding their hands out - when all these appeals were taken literally and responded to with a warm handshake - which only the more severely intoxicated stemmers didn't recoil from the profferer of, plus Loach - by E.T.A.'s own Mario Incandenza, who'd been sent das.h.i.+ng out from the Back Bay co-op where his father was filming something that involved actors dressed up as G.o.d and the Devil playing poker with Tarot cards for the soul of Cosgrove Watt, using subway tokens as the ante, and Mario'd been sent das.h.i.+ng out to get another roll of tokens from the nearest station, which because of a dumpsterfire near the entrance to the Arlington St. station turned out to be Park Street, and Mario, being alone and only fourteen and largely clueless about anti-stem defensive strategies outside T-stations, had had no one worldly or adult along with him there to explain to him why the request of men with outstretched hands for a simple handshake or High Five shouldn't automatically be honored and granted, and Mario had extended his clawlike hand and touched and heartily shaken Loach's own fuliginous hand, which led through a convoluted but kind of heartwarming and faith-reaffirming series of circ.u.mstances to B. Loach, even w/o an official B.A., being given an a.s.st. Trainer's job at E.T.A., a job he was promoted from just months later when the then-Head Trainer suffered the terrible accident that resulted in all locks being taken off E.T.A. saunas' doors and the saunas' maximum temperature being hard-wired down to no more than 50C.

The inverted gla.s.s was the size of a cage or small jail cell, but it was still recognizably a bathroom-type tumbler, as if for gargling or post-brus.h.i.+ng swis.h.i.+ng, only huge and upside-down, on the floor, with him inside. The tumbler was like a prop or display; it was the sort of thing that would have to be made special. Its gla.s.s was green and its bottom over his head was pebbled and the light inside was the watery dancing green of extreme ocean depths.

There was a kind of louvered screen or vent high on one side of the gla.s.s, but no air was coming out. In. The air inside the huge gla.s.s was pretty clearly limited, as well, because there was already CO2 steam on the sides. The gla.s.s was too thick to break or to kick his way out, and it felt like he might have possibly broken the leg's foot already trying. steam on the sides. The gla.s.s was too thick to break or to kick his way out, and it felt like he might have possibly broken the leg's foot already trying.

There were some green and distorted faces through the gla.s.s's side's steam. The face at eye-level belonged to the latest Subject, the dexterous and adoring Swiss hand-model. She stood looking at him, her arms crossed, smoking, exhaling greenly through her nose, then looked down to confer with another face, seeming to float at about waist-level, that belonged to the shy and handicapped fan who O.'d realized had shared the Subject's Swiss accent.

The Subject behind the gla.s.s would meet Orin's eye steadily but did not acknowledge him or anything he shouted. When Orin had tried to kick his way out was when he'd recognized that the Subject was looking at at his eyes rather than his eyes rather than into into them as previously. There were now smeared footprints on the gla.s.s. them as previously. There were now smeared footprints on the gla.s.s.

Every few seconds Orin wiped the steam of his breath away from the thick gla.s.s to see what the faces were doing.

His foot really was hurt, and the remains of whatever had made him fall asleep so hard really were making him sick to his stomach, and in sum this experience was pretty clearly not one of his bad dreams, but Orin, #71, was in deep denial about its not being a dream. It was like the minute he'd come to and found himself inside a huge inverted tumbler he'd opted to figure: dream. The stilted amplified voice that came periodically through the small screen or vent above him, demanding to know Where Is The Master Buried, was surreal and bizarre and inexplicable enough to Orin to make him grateful: it was the sort of surreal disorienting nightmarish incomprehensible but vehement demand that often gets made in really bad dreams. Plus the bizarre anxiety of not being able to get the adoring Subject to acknowledge anything he said through the gla.s.s. When the speaker's screen slid back, Orin looked away from the gla.s.s's faces and up, figuring that they were going to do something even more surreal and vehement that would really nail down the undeniable dream-status of the whole experience.

Mlle. Luria P---, who disdained the subtler aspects of technical interviews and had lobbied simply to be given a pair of rubber gloves and two or three minutes alone with the Subject's t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es (and who was not really Swiss), had predicted accurately what the Subject's response would be when the speaker's screen was withdrawn and the sewer roaches began pouring blackly and s.h.i.+nily through, and as the Subject splayed itself against the tumbler's gla.s.s and pressed its face so flat against the absurd gla.s.s's side that the face changed from green to stark white, and, much m.u.f.fled, shrieked at them 'Do it to her! Do it to her! Do it to her! ,' Luria P--- inclined her head and rolled her eyes at the A.F.R. leader, whom she had long regarded as something of a ham. ,' Luria P--- inclined her head and rolled her eyes at the A.F.R. leader, whom she had long regarded as something of a ham.

Human beings came and went. An R.N. felt his forehead and yanked her hand back with a yelp. Somebody down the hall was jabbering and weeping. At one point Chandler F., the recently graduated nonstick-cookware salesman, seemed to be there in the cla.s.sic resident-confiteor position, his chin on his hands on the bedside crib-railing. The room's light was a glowing gray. The Ennet House House Manager was there, fingering the place her missing eyebrow'd been, trying to explain something about how Pat M. hadn't come because she and Mr. M.'d had to kick Pat's little girl out of the house for using something synthetic again, and was in a too shaky place spiritually to even leave home. Gately felt physically hotter than he'd ever felt. It felt like a sun in his head. The crib-type railings got tapered on top and writhed a little, like flames. He imagined himself on the House's aluminum platter with an apple in his mouth, his skin glazed and crispy. The M.D. that looked age twelve appeared with others wreathed in mist and said Up it to 30 q 2 and Let's Try Doris, 385 385 that the poor son of a b.i.t.c.h was burning down. He wasn't talking to Gately. The M.D. was not addressing Don Gately. Gately's only conscious concern was Asking For Help to refuse Demerol. He kept trying to say that the poor son of a b.i.t.c.h was burning down. He wasn't talking to Gately. The M.D. was not addressing Don Gately. Gately's only conscious concern was Asking For Help to refuse Demerol. He kept trying to say addict addict. He remembered being young on the playground and telling Maura Duffy to look down her s.h.i.+rt and spell attic attic. Somebody else said Ice Bath. Gately felt something rough and cool on his face. A voice that sounded like his own brain-voice with an echo said to never try and pull a weight that exceeds you. Gately figured he might die. It wasn't calm and peaceful like alleged. It was more like trying to pull something heavier than you. He heard the late Gene Fackelmann saying to get a load of this. He was the object of much bedside industry. A brisk clink of I.V. bottles overhead. Slosh of bags. None of the overhead voices talking to him. His input unrequired. Part of him hoped they were putting Demerol in his I.V without him knowing. He gurgled and mooed, saying addict addict. Which was the truth, that he was, he knew. The Crocodile that liked to wear Hanes, Lenny, that at the podium liked to say 'The truth will you set you free, but not until it's done with you.' The voice down the hall was weeping like its heart would break. He imagined the A.D.A. with his hat off earnestly praying Gately would live so he could send him to M.D.C.-Walpole. The harsh sound he heard up close was the tape around his unshaved mouth getting ripped off him so quick he hardly felt it. He tried to avoid projecting how his shoulder would feel if they started pounding on his chest like they pound on dying people's chests. The intercom calmly dinged. He heard conversing people in the hall pa.s.sing the open door and stopping for a second to look in, but still conversing. It occurred to him if he died everybody would still exist and go home and eat and X their wife and go to sleep. A conversing voice at the door laughed and told somebody else it was getting harder these days to tell the h.o.m.os.e.xuals from the people who beat up h.o.m.os.e.xuals. It was impossible to imagine a world without himself in it. He remembered two of his Beverly High teammates beating up a so-called h.o.m.os.e.xual kid while Gately walked away, wanting no part of either side. Disgusted by both sides of the conflict. He imagined having to become a h.o.m.os.e.xual in Walpole. He imagined going to one meeting a week and having a shepherd's crook and parrot and playing cribbage for a cigarette a point and lying on his side in his bunk in his cell facing the wall, jacking off to the memory of t.i.ts. He saw the A.D.A. with his head bowed and his hat against his chest.

Somebody overhead asked somebody else if they were ready, and somebody commented on the size of Gately's head and gripped Gately's head, and then he felt an upward movement deep inside that was so personal and horrible he woke up. Only one of his eyes would open because the floor's impact had shut the other one up plump and tight as a sausage. His whole front side of him was cold from lying on the wet floor. Fackelmann around somewhere behind him was mumbling something that consisted totally of g g's.

His open eye could see the luxury apt. window. It was dawn outside, a glowing gray, and birds had plenty to say out in the bare trees; and at the big window was a face and a windmill of arms. Gately tried to adjust the vertical hold on his vision. Pamela Hoffman-Jeep was at the window. Their apt. was on the second floor of the luxury complex. She was up in a tree right outside the window, standing on a branch, looking in, either gesturing wildly or trying to keep her balance. Gately felt a rush of concern about her falling out of the tree and was preparing to ask the floor to maybe please relax its hold a second and let him go when P.H.-J.'s face suddenly fell and exited the bottom of the window and was replaced by the face of Bobby ('C') C. Bobby C raised a slow two-finger salute to his temple in an impa.s.sively mocking h.e.l.lo as he scanned the evidence of serious bingeing in the room, through the window. Eyeballing Mt. Dilaudid with special attention, nodding down to somebody down under the tree. He edged forward on the branch until he was right up flush with the window and pushed up on its frame with one hand, trying to open the locked window. The rising sun behind him cast a shadow of his head against the wet floor. Gately called out to Fackelmann and tried to roll and sit up. His bones felt full of busted gla.s.s. Bobby C held up a six-pack of Hefenreffer and waggled it suggestively, like wanting in. Gately had just managed to sit partly up when C's fist in its fingerless glove came through the window, spraying double-pane gla.s.s. The fallen TP screen continued to show shots of small flames, Gately could see. C's arm came through and groped for the latch and raised the window. Fackelmann was bleating like a sheep but not moving; a syringe he hadn't bothered with removing hung from the inside of his elbow. Gately saw Bobby C had gla.s.s in his purple hair and a vintage Taurus-PT 9 mm. jammed into his spike-studded belt. Gately sat there dumbly as C clambered on in and kind of tiptoed through the various puddles and rolled Fackelmann's head back to check his pupils. C clucked his tongue and let Fackelmann's head fall back against the wall, Fax still softly bleating. He turned smartly on his boot's heel and started across toward the apartment door, and Gately sat there looking at him. When he got to where Gately was sitting on the floor with his wet legs curved parenthesized out in front of him like some sort of huge pre-verbal rug-rat C stopped as if to say something he'd just remembered, looking down at Gately, his smile wide and warm, and Gately noticed he had a black front tooth just as C caught him over the ear with the Taurus-PT and put him back down. The floor got the back of Gately's head worse than the gun-b.u.t.t did. His ears belled. It wasn't stars he saw. Then Bobby C kicked Gately in the b.a.l.l.s, S.O.P. to keep your man down, and Gately drew his knees up and turned his head and was sick out onto the floor. He heard the apartment door opening and the leisurely sound of C's boots going down the stairs to the complex's door. Between spasms, Gately urged Fackelmann to go for the window as rickety-tick as he could. Fackelmann was slumped back against the wall; he was looking at his legs and saying he couldn't feel his legs, that he was numb from the scalp on down and climbing.

C returned shortly, and at the head o