The day-shift Ennet House kid at the booth who raises the portcullis to let him onto the grounds had a couple times in October approached Pemulis about a potential transaction. Pemulis has a rigid policy about not transacting with E.T.A. employees who come up the hill from the halfway house, since he knows some of them are at the place on Court Order, and knows for a fact they pull unscheduled Urines all over the place down there, and types like the Ennet House types are just the sorts of people Pemulis"s talents let him get away from in terms of like social milieu and mixing and transacting; and his basic att.i.tude with these low-rent employees is one of unfoolish discretion and like why tempt fate.
The East Courts are empty and ball-strewn when Pemulis pulls in; most of them are still at lunch. Pemulis, Troeltsch, and Schacht"s triple-room is in subdorm B in the back north part of the second floor of West House and so superjacent to the Dining Hall, from which through the floor Pemulis can hear voices and silverware and can smell exactly what they"re having. The first thing he does is boot up the phone console and try Inc and Mario"s room over in Comm.-Ad., where Hal is sitting in windowlight with the Riverside Hamlet Hamlet he told Mario he"d read and help with a conceptual film-type project based on part of, his uncushioned captain"s chair partly under an old print of a detail from the minor and soft-core Alexandrian mosaic he told Mario he"d read and help with a conceptual film-type project based on part of, his uncushioned captain"s chair partly under an old print of a detail from the minor and soft-core Alexandrian mosaic Consummation of the Levirates, Consummation of the Levirates,eating an AminoPal energy-bar and waiting very casually, the phone with its antenna already out lying ready on the arm of the chair and two folio-size energy-bar and waiting very casually, the phone with its antenna already out lying ready on the arm of the chair and two folio-size Baron"s Baron"s SAT-prep guides and a spine-shot copy of the B.S. 1937 SAT-prep guides and a spine-shot copy of the B.S. 1937 Tilden on Spin Tilden on Spin and his keys on their neck-chain lying on the Lindistarne carpet by his shoe, waiting in a very casual posture. Hal deliberately waits till the audio console"s third ring, like a girl at home on Sat.u.r.day night. and his keys on their neck-chain lying on the Lindistarne carpet by his shoe, waiting in a very casual posture. Hal deliberately waits till the audio console"s third ring, like a girl at home on Sat.u.r.day night.
"Mmyellow."
"The t.u.r.d emergeth." Pemulis"s clear and digitally condensed voice on the line. "Repeat. The t.u.r.d emergeth."
"Please commit a crime," is Hal Incandenza"s immediate reply.
"Gracious me," Pemulis says into the phone tucked under his jaw, carefully de-Velcroing the lining of his Mr. Howell hat.
TENNIS AND THE FERAL PRODIGY, NARRATED BY HAL INCANDENZA, AN11.5-MINUTE DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT CARTRIDGE DIRECTED, RECORDED, EDITED, AND - ACCORDING TO THE ENTRY FORM - WRITTEN BY MARIO INCANDENZA, IN RECEIPT OF NEW-NEW-ENGLAND REGIONAL HONORABLE MENTION IN INTERLACE TELENTERTAINMENT"S ANNUAL "NEW EYES, NEW VOICES" YOUNG FILMMAKERS" CONTEST, APRIL IN THE YEAR OF THE YUs.h.i.tYU2007 MIMETIC-RESOLUTION-CARTRIDGE-VIEW-MOTHERBOARD-EASY-TO-INSTALL UPGRADE FOR INFERNATRON/INTERLACE TP SYSTEMS FOR HOME, OFFICE OR MOBILE (SIC), ALMOST EXACTLY THREE YEARS AFTER DR. JAMES O. INCANDENZA Pa.s.sED FROM THIS LIFE MIMETIC-RESOLUTION-CARTRIDGE-VIEW-MOTHERBOARD-EASY-TO-INSTALL UPGRADE FOR INFERNATRON/INTERLACE TP SYSTEMS FOR HOME, OFFICE OR MOBILE (SIC), ALMOST EXACTLY THREE YEARS AFTER DR. JAMES O. INCANDENZA Pa.s.sED FROM THIS LIFE Here is how to put on a big red tent of a shirt that has ETA ETA across the chest in gray. across the chest in gray.
Please ease carefully into your supporter and adjust the elastic straps so the straps do not bite into your b.u.t.t and make bulged ridges in your b.u.t.t that everyone can see once you"ve sweated through your shorts.
Here is how to wrap your torn ankle so tightly in its flesh-tone Ace bandages your left leg feels like a log.
Here is how to win, later.
This is a yellow iron-mesh Ball-Hopper full of dirty green dead old b.a.l.l.s. Take them to the East Courts while the dawn is still chalky and no one"s around except the mourning doves that infest the pines at sunrise, and the air is so sopped you can see your summer breath. Hit serves to no one. Make a mess of b.a.l.l.s along the base of the opposite fence as the sun hauls itself up over the Harbor and a thin sweat breaks and the serves start to boom. Stop thinking and let it flow and go boom, boom. The shiver of the ball against the opposite fence. Hit about a thousand serves to no one while Himself sits and advises with his flask. Older men"s legs are white and hairless from decades in pants. Here is the set of keys a stride"s length before you in the court as you serve dead b.a.l.l.s to no one. After each serve you must almost fall forward into the court and in one smooth motion bend and scoop up the keys with your left hand. This is how to train yourself to follow through into the court after the serve. You still, years after the man"s death, cannot keep your keys anywhere but on the floor.
This is how to hold the stick.
Learn to call the racquet a stick. Everyone does, here. It"s a tradition: The Stick. Something so much an extension of you deserves a sobriquet.
Please look. You"ll be shown exactly once how to hold it. This is how to hold it. Just like this. Forget all the near-Eastern-slice-backhand-grip bafflegab. Just say h.e.l.lo is all. Just shake hands with the calfskin grip of the stick. This is how to hold it. The stick is your friend. You will become very close.
Grasp your friend firmly at all times. A firm grip is essential for both control and power. Here is how to carry a tennis ball around in your stick-hand, squeezing it over and over for long stretches of time - in cla.s.s, on the phone, in lab, in front of the TP, a wet ball for the shower, ideally squeezing it at all times except during meals. See the Academy dining hall, where tennis b.a.l.l.s sit beside every plate. Squeeze the tennis ball rhythmically month after year until you feel it no more than your heart squeezing blood and your right forearm is three times the size of your left and your arm looks from across a court like a gorilla"s arm or a stevedore"s arm pasted on the body of a child.
Here is how to do extra individual drills before the Academy"s A.M. drills, before breakfast, so that after the thousandth ball hit just out of reach by Himself, with his mammoth wingspan and ghastly calves, urging you with nothing but smiles on to great and greater demonstrations of effort, so that after you"ve gotten your third and final wind and must vomit, there is little inside to vomit and the spasms pa.s.s quickly and an east breeze blows cooler past you and you feel clean and can breathe.
Here is how to don red and gray E.T.A. sweats and squad-jog a weekly 40 km. up and down urban Commonwealth Avenue even though you would rather set your hair on fire than jog in a pack. Jogging is painful and pointless, but you are not in charge. Your brother gets to ride shotgun while a senile German blows BBs at your legs both of them laughing and screaming Schnell. Schnell. Enfield is due east of the Marathon"s Hills of Heartbreak, which are just up Commonwealth past the Reservoir in Newton. Urban jogging in a sweaty pack is tedious. Have Himself hunch down to put a long pale arm around your shoulders and tell you that his own father had told him that talent is sort of a dark gift, that talent is its own expectation: it is there from the start and either lived up to or lost. Enfield is due east of the Marathon"s Hills of Heartbreak, which are just up Commonwealth past the Reservoir in Newton. Urban jogging in a sweaty pack is tedious. Have Himself hunch down to put a long pale arm around your shoulders and tell you that his own father had told him that talent is sort of a dark gift, that talent is its own expectation: it is there from the start and either lived up to or lost.
Have a father whose own father lost what was there. Have a father who lived up to his own promise and then found thing after thing to meet and surpa.s.s the expectations of his promise in, and didn"t seem just a whole h.e.l.l of a lot happier or tighter wrapped than his own failed father, leaving you yourself in a kind of feral and flux-ridden state with respect to talent.
Here is how to avoid thinking about any of this by practicing and playing until everything runs on autopilot and talent"s unconscious exercise becomes a way to escape yourself, a long waking dream of pure play.
The irony is that this makes you very good, and you start to become regarded as having a prodigious talent to live up to.
Here is how to handle being a feral prodigy. Here is how to handle being seeded at tournaments, signifying that seeding committees composed of old big-armed men publicly expect you to reach a certain round. Reaching at least the round you"re supposed to is known at tournaments as "justifying your seed." By repeating this term over and over, perhaps in the same rhythm at which you squeeze a ball, you can reduce it to an empty series of phonemes, just formants and fricatives, trochaically stressed, signifying zip.
Here is how to beat unseeded, wide-eyed opponents from Iowa or Rhode Island in the early rounds of tournaments without expending much energy but also without seeming contemptuous.
This is how to play with personal integrity in a tournament"s early rounds, when there is no umpire. Any ball that lands on your side and is too close to call: call it fair. Here is how to be invulnerable to gamesmanship. To keep your attention"s aperture tight. Here is how to teach yourself, when an opponent maybe cheats on the line-calls, to remind yourself that what goes around comes around. That a poor sport"s punishment is always self-inflicted.
Try to learn to let what is unfair teach you.
Here is how to spray yourself down exactly once with Lemon Pledge, the ultimate sunscreen, then discover that when you go out and sweat into it it smells like close-order skunk.
Here is how to take nonnarcotic muscle relaxants for the back spasms that come from thousands of serves to no one.
Here is how to weep in bed trying to remember when your torn blue ankle didn"t hurt every minute.
This is the whirlpool, a friend.
Here is how to set up the electric ball machine at dawn on the days Himself is away living up to what will be his final talent.
Here is how to tie a bow tie. Here is how to sit through small openings of your father"s first art films, surrounded by surly foreign cigarette smoke and conversations so pretentious you literally cannot believe them, you"re sure you have misheard them. Pretend you"re engaged by the jagged angles and multiple exposures without pretending you have the slightest idea what"s going on. a.s.sume your brother"s expression.
Here is how to sweat.
Here is how to hand a trophy to Lateral Alice Moore to put in the E.T.A. lobby"s gla.s.s case under its system of spotlights and small signs.
What is unfair can be a stern but invaluable teacher.
Here is how to pack carbohydrates into your tissues for a four-singles two-doubles match day in a Florida June.
Please learn to sleep with perpetual sunburn.
Expect some rough dreams. They come with the territory. Try to accept them. Let them teach you.
Keep a flashlight by your bed. It helps with the dreams.
Please make no extramural friends. Discourage advances from outside the circuit. Turn down dates.
If you do exactly the rehabilitative exercises They a.s.sign you, no matter how silly and tedious, the ankle will mend more quickly.
This type of stretch helps prevent the groin-pull.
Treat your knees and elbow with all reasonable care: you will have them with you for a long time.
Here is how to turn down an extramural date so you won"t be asked again. Say something like I"m terribly sorry I can"t come out to see 8 8 revived on a wall-size Cambridge Celluloid Festival viewer on Friday, Kimberly, or Daphne, but you see if I jump rope for two hours then jog backwards through Newton till I puke They"ll let me watch match-cartridges and then my mother will read aloud to me from the revived on a wall-size Cambridge Celluloid Festival viewer on Friday, Kimberly, or Daphne, but you see if I jump rope for two hours then jog backwards through Newton till I puke They"ll let me watch match-cartridges and then my mother will read aloud to me from the O.E.D. O.E.D. until 2200 lights-out, and c.; so you can be sure that henceforth Daphne/Kimberly/Jennifer will take her adolescent-mating-dance-type-ritual-socialization business somewhere else. Be on guard. The road widens, and many of the detours are seductive. Be constantly focused and on alert: feral talent is its own set of expectations and can abandon you at any one of the detours of so-called normal American life at any time, so be until 2200 lights-out, and c.; so you can be sure that henceforth Daphne/Kimberly/Jennifer will take her adolescent-mating-dance-type-ritual-socialization business somewhere else. Be on guard. The road widens, and many of the detours are seductive. Be constantly focused and on alert: feral talent is its own set of expectations and can abandon you at any one of the detours of so-called normal American life at any time, so be on guard. on guard.
Here is how to schnell. schnell.
Here is how to go through your normal adolescent growth spurt and have every limb in your body ache like a migraine because selected groups of muscles have been worked until thick and intensile and they resist as the sudden growth of bone tries to stretch them, and they ache all the time. There is medication for this condition.
If you are an adolescent, here is the trick to being neither quite a nerd nor quite a jock: be no one.
It is easier than you think.
Here is how to read the monthly E.T.A. and U.S.T.A. and O.N.A.N.T.A. rankings the way Himself read scholars" reviews of his multiple-exposure melodramas. Learn to care and not to care. They mean the rankings to help you determine where you are, not who you are. Memorize your monthly rankings, and forget them. Here is how: never tell anyone where you are.
This is also how not to fear sleep or dreams. Never tell anyone where you are. Please learn the pragmatics of expressing fear: sometimes words that seem to express really invoke. invoke.
This can be tricky.
Here is how to get free sticks and strings and clothes and gear from Dunlop, Inc. as long as you let them spraypaint the distinctive Dunlop logo on your sticks" strings and sew logos on your shoulder and the left pocket of your shorts and use a Dunlop gear-bag, and you become a walking lunging sweating advertis.e.m.e.nt for Dunlop, Inc.; this is all as long as you keep justifying your seed and preserving your rank; the Dunlop, Inc. New New England Regional Athletic Rep will address you as "Our gray swan"; he wears designer slacks and choking cologne and about twice a year wants to help you dress and has to be slapped like a gnat.
Be a Student of the Game. Like most cliches of sport, this is profound. You can be shaped, or you can be broken. There is not much in between. Try to learn. Be coachable. Try to learn from everybody, especially those who fail. This is hard. Peers who fizzle or blow up or fall down, run away, disappear from the monthly rankings, drop off the circuit. E.T.A. peers waiting for deLint to knock quietly at their door and ask to chat. Opponents. It"s all educational. How promising you are as a Student of the Game is a function of what you can pay attention to without running away. Nets and fences can be mirrors. And between the nets and fences, opponents are also mirrors. This is why the whole thing is scary. This is why all opponents are scary and weaker opponents are especially scary.
See yourself in your opponents. They will bring you to understand the Game. To accept the fact that the Game is about managed fear. That its object is to send from yourself what you hope will not return.
This is your body. They want you to know. You will have it with you always.
On this issue there is no counsel; you must make your best guess. For myself, I do not expect ever really to know.
But in the interval, if it is an interval: here is Motrin for your joints, Noxzema for your burn, Lemon Pledge if you prefer nausea to burn, Contracol for your back, benzoin for your hands, Epsom salts and anti-inflammatories for your ankle, and extracurriculars for your folks, who just wanted to make sure you didn"t miss anything they got.
SELECTED TRANSCRIPTS OF THE RESIDENT-INTERFACE-DROP-IN-HOURS OF MS. PATRICIA MONTESIAN, M.A., C.S.A.C., 58 58 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ENNET HOUSE DRUG AND ALCOHOL RECOVERY HOUSE ( EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ENNET HOUSE DRUG AND ALCOHOL RECOVERY HOUSE (SIC), ENFIELD MA, 13001500H., WEDNESDAY, 4 NOVEMBER - YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT "But there"s this way way he drums his fingers on the table. Not even like really drumming. More like in-way between drumming and like this he drums his fingers on the table. Not even like really drumming. More like in-way between drumming and like this scratching, picking, scratching, picking, the way you see somebody picking at dead skin. And without any kind of rhythm, see, constant and never-stopping but with no kind of rhythm you could grab onto and follow and stand. Totally like the way you see somebody picking at dead skin. And without any kind of rhythm, see, constant and never-stopping but with no kind of rhythm you could grab onto and follow and stand. Totally like whacked, insane. whacked, insane. Like the kind of sounds you can imagine a girl hears in her head right before she kills her whole family because somebody took the last bit of peanut b.u.t.ter or something. You know what I"m saying? The sound of a f.u.c.king mind coming apart. You know what I"m saying? So yeah, yes, OK, the short answer is when he wouldn"t quit with the drumming at supper I sort of poked him with my fork. Sort of. I could see how maybe somebody could have thought I sort of stabbed him. I offered to get the fork out, though. Let me just say I"m ready to make amends at like anytime. For my part in it. I"m Like the kind of sounds you can imagine a girl hears in her head right before she kills her whole family because somebody took the last bit of peanut b.u.t.ter or something. You know what I"m saying? The sound of a f.u.c.king mind coming apart. You know what I"m saying? So yeah, yes, OK, the short answer is when he wouldn"t quit with the drumming at supper I sort of poked him with my fork. Sort of. I could see how maybe somebody could have thought I sort of stabbed him. I offered to get the fork out, though. Let me just say I"m ready to make amends at like anytime. For my part in it. I"m owning owning my part in it is what I"m saying. Can I ask am I going to get Restricted for this? Cause I have this Overnight tomorrow that Gene he approved already in the Overnight Log. If you want to look. But I"m not trying to get out of owning my part of the, like, occurrence. If my Higher Power who I choose to call G.o.d works through you saying I"ve got some kind of a punishment due, I won"t try to get out of a punishment. If I"ve got one due. I just wanted to ask. Did I mention I"m grateful to be here?" my part in it is what I"m saying. Can I ask am I going to get Restricted for this? Cause I have this Overnight tomorrow that Gene he approved already in the Overnight Log. If you want to look. But I"m not trying to get out of owning my part of the, like, occurrence. If my Higher Power who I choose to call G.o.d works through you saying I"ve got some kind of a punishment due, I won"t try to get out of a punishment. If I"ve got one due. I just wanted to ask. Did I mention I"m grateful to be here?"
"I"m not denying denying anything. I"m simply asking you to define "alcoholic." How can you ask me to attribute to myself a given term if you refuse to define the term"s meaning? I"ve been a reasonably successful personal-injury attorney for sixteen years, and except for that one ridiculous so-called seizure at the Bar a.s.sociation dinner this spring and that clot of a judge banning me from his courtroom - and let me just say that I can support my contention that the man m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.es under his robe behind the bench with anything. I"m simply asking you to define "alcoholic." How can you ask me to attribute to myself a given term if you refuse to define the term"s meaning? I"ve been a reasonably successful personal-injury attorney for sixteen years, and except for that one ridiculous so-called seizure at the Bar a.s.sociation dinner this spring and that clot of a judge banning me from his courtroom - and let me just say that I can support my contention that the man m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.es under his robe behind the bench with detailed detailed corroboration from both colleagues and Circuit Court laundry personnel - with the exception of less than a handful of incidents I"ve held my liquor and my head as high as many a taller advocate. Believe you me. How old are you, young lady? I am not corroboration from both colleagues and Circuit Court laundry personnel - with the exception of less than a handful of incidents I"ve held my liquor and my head as high as many a taller advocate. Believe you me. How old are you, young lady? I am not in denial in denialso to speak about anything empirical and objective. Am I having pancreas problems? Yes. Do I have trouble recalling certain intervals in the Kemp and Limbaugh administrations? No contest. Is there a spot of domestic turbulence surrounding my intake? Why yes there is. Did I experience yes some formication in detox? I did. I have no problem forthrightly admitting things I can grasp. Formicate, with an m, m, yes. But what is this you demand I admit? Is it yes. But what is this you demand I admit? Is it denial denial to delay signature until the vocabulary of the contract is clear to all parties so bound? Yes, yes, you don"t follow what I mean here, good! And you"re reluctant to proceed without clarification. I rest. I cannot deny what I don"t understand. This is my position." to delay signature until the vocabulary of the contract is clear to all parties so bound? Yes, yes, you don"t follow what I mean here, good! And you"re reluctant to proceed without clarification. I rest. I cannot deny what I don"t understand. This is my position."
"So I"m sitting there waiting for my meatloaf to cool and suddenly there"s a simply sphincter sphincter-loosening shriek and here"s Nell in the air with a steak-fork, positively aloft, leaping aloft, leapingacross the table, in flight, flight, hori horizontal, I mean Pat the girl"s body is literally parallel parallel to the surface of the table, to the surface of the table, hurling hurling herself at me, with this upraised fork, shrieking something about the sound of herself at me, with this upraised fork, shrieking something about the sound of peanut peanut b.u.t.ter. I mean my G.o.d. Gately and Diehl had to pull the fork out of my hand and the tabletop both. To give you an idea. Of the b.u.t.ter. I mean my G.o.d. Gately and Diehl had to pull the fork out of my hand and the tabletop both. To give you an idea. Of the savagery. savagery.Don"t even ask me about the pain. Let"s don"t even get into that, I a.s.sure you. They offered offered me Percocet me Percocet 59 59 at the emergency room, is all I"ll say about the levels of pain involved. I told them I was in recovery and powerless over narcotics of any sort. Please don"t even ask me how moved they were at my courage if you don"t want me to get weepy. This whole experience has me right on the edge of a complete hysterical at the emergency room, is all I"ll say about the levels of pain involved. I told them I was in recovery and powerless over narcotics of any sort. Please don"t even ask me how moved they were at my courage if you don"t want me to get weepy. This whole experience has me right on the edge of a complete hysterical fit. fit. So but yes, guilty, I may very well have been tapping on the table. Excuse me for occupying s.p.a.ce. And then she ever so So but yes, guilty, I may very well have been tapping on the table. Excuse me for occupying s.p.a.ce. And then she ever so magnaminously magnaminously says she"ll apologize if I will. Well come again I said? Come says she"ll apologize if I will. Well come again I said? Come again? again? I mean my G.o.d. I"m sitting there attached to the table by tines. I know bashing, Pat, and this was unabashed bashing at its most fascist. I respectfully ask that she be kicked out of here on her enormous rear-end. Let her go back to whatever fork-wielding district she came from, with her Hefty bag full of gauche clothes. Honestly. I know part of this process is learning to live in a community. The give and take, to let go of personality issues, turn them over. Et cetera. But is it not also supposed to be and here I quote the handbook a I mean my G.o.d. I"m sitting there attached to the table by tines. I know bashing, Pat, and this was unabashed bashing at its most fascist. I respectfully ask that she be kicked out of here on her enormous rear-end. Let her go back to whatever fork-wielding district she came from, with her Hefty bag full of gauche clothes. Honestly. I know part of this process is learning to live in a community. The give and take, to let go of personality issues, turn them over. Et cetera. But is it not also supposed to be and here I quote the handbook a safe safe and and nurturing environment nurturing environment? I have seldom felt less nurtured than I did impaled on that table I have to say. The pathetic hara.s.sments of Minty and McDade are bad enough. I can get bashed back at the Fenway. I did not come here to get bashed on some pretense of table-tapping. I"m dangerously close to saying either that... that specimen specimen goes or I do." goes or I do."
"I"m awful sorry to bother. I can come back. I was wondering if maybe there was any special Program prayer for when you want to hang yourself."
"I want understanding I have no denial I am drug addict. Me, I know that I am addicted since the period of before Miami. I am no trouble to stand up in the meetings and say I am Alfonso, I am drug addict, powerless. I am knowing powerlessness since the period of Castro. But I cannot stop even since I know. This I have fear. I fear I do not stop when I admit I am Alfonso, powerless. How does to admit I am powerless make me stop what the thing is I am powerless to stop? My head it is crazy from this fearing of no power. I am now hope for power, power, Mrs. Pat. I want to advice. Is hope of Mrs. Pat. I want to advice. Is hope of power power the bad way for Alfonso as drug addict?" the bad way for Alfonso as drug addict?"
"Sorry to barge, there, P.M. Division called again about the thing with the vermin. The word was ultimatum ultimatum that they said." that they said."
"Sorry if I"m bothering you about something that isn"t a straightforward treatment interface thing. I"m up there trying to do my Ch.o.r.e. I"ve got the men"s upstairs bathroom. There"s something... Pat there"s something in the toilet up there. That won"t flush. The thing. It won"t go away. It keeps reappearing. Flush after flush. I"m only here for instructions. Possibly also protective equipment. I couldn"t even describe the thing in the toilet. All I can say is if it was produced by anything human then I have to say I"m really worried. Don"t even ask me to describe it. If you want to go up and have a look, I"m a 100% confident it"s still there. It"s made it real clear it"s not going anywhere."
"Alls I know is I put a Hunt"s Pudding Cup in the resident fridge like I"m supposed to at 1300 and da-da-da and at 1430 I come down all primed for pudding that I paid for myself and it"s not there and McDade comes on all concerned and offers to help me look for it and da-da, except if you look I look and here"s the son of a wh.o.r.e got this big thing of pudding on his chin."
"Yeah but except so how can I answer just yes or no to do I want to stop the c.o.ke? Do I think I want to absolutely I think I want to. I don"t have a septum no more. My septum"s been like f.u.c.king dissolved by c.o.ke. See? You see anything like a septum when I lift up like that? I"ve absolutely with my whole heart thought I wanted to stop and so forth. Ever since with the septum. So but so since I"ve been wanting to stop this whole time, why couldn"t I stop? See what I"m saying? Isn"t it all about wanting to and so on? And so forth? How can living here and going to meetings and all do anything except make me want to stop? But I think I already want to stop. How come I"d even be here if I didn"t want to stop? Isn"t being here proof I want to stop? But then so how come I can"t stop, if I want to stop, is the thing."
"This kid had a harelip. Where it goes like, you know, thith. thith. But his went way up. Further up. He sold bad speed but good pot. He said he"d cover our part of the rent if we kept his snakes supplied with mice. We were smoking up all our cash so what"s to do. They ate mice. We had to go into pet stores and pretend to be real heavily into mice. Snakes. He kept snakes. Doocy. They smelled bad. He never cleaned the tanks. His lip covered his nose. The harelip. My guess he couldn"t smell what they smelled like. Or something would have got done. He had a thing for Mildred. My girlfriend. I don"t know. She probably has a problem too. I don"t know. He had a thing for her. He"d keep saying s.h.i.t like, with all these But his went way up. Further up. He sold bad speed but good pot. He said he"d cover our part of the rent if we kept his snakes supplied with mice. We were smoking up all our cash so what"s to do. They ate mice. We had to go into pet stores and pretend to be real heavily into mice. Snakes. He kept snakes. Doocy. They smelled bad. He never cleaned the tanks. His lip covered his nose. The harelip. My guess he couldn"t smell what they smelled like. Or something would have got done. He had a thing for Mildred. My girlfriend. I don"t know. She probably has a problem too. I don"t know. He had a thing for her. He"d keep saying s.h.i.t like, with all these t-h t-h"s, he"d go Tho you want to f.u.c.k me, Mildred, or what? We don"t hath t"eat each other or nothin. He"d say s.h.i.t like this with me right there, dropping mice into these tanks, holding my breath. The mice had to be alive. All in this G.o.dawful voice like somebody"s holding their nose and can"t say s. s. He didn"t wash his hair for two years. We had like an in-joke on how long he wouldn"t wash his hair and we"d make X"s on the calendar every week. We had a lot of these in-type jokes, to help us stand it. We were wasted I"d say 90% of the time. Nine-O. But he never did the whole time we were there. Wash. When she said we had to leave or she was taking off and taking Harriet was when she said when I was at work he started telling her how to have s.e.x with a chicken. He said he had s.e.x with the chickens. It was a trailer out past the dumpster-dock in the Spur, and he kept a couple chickens under it. No wonder they ran like h.e.l.l when anybody came. He"d been like s.e.xually abusing fowls. He kept talking to her about it, with all He didn"t wash his hair for two years. We had like an in-joke on how long he wouldn"t wash his hair and we"d make X"s on the calendar every week. We had a lot of these in-type jokes, to help us stand it. We were wasted I"d say 90% of the time. Nine-O. But he never did the whole time we were there. Wash. When she said we had to leave or she was taking off and taking Harriet was when she said when I was at work he started telling her how to have s.e.x with a chicken. He said he had s.e.x with the chickens. It was a trailer out past the dumpster-dock in the Spur, and he kept a couple chickens under it. No wonder they ran like h.e.l.l when anybody came. He"d been like s.e.xually abusing fowls. He kept talking to her about it, with all t-h t-h"s, like You hath to like thcrew thcrew them on, but when you come they jutht thort of them on, but when you come they jutht thort of fly fly off of you. She said she drew the line. We left and went to Pine Street shelter and she stayed for a while till this guy with a hat said he had a ranch in New Jersey and off she goes, and with Harriet. Harriet"s our daughter. She"s going to be three. She says it off of you. She said she drew the line. We left and went to Pine Street shelter and she stayed for a while till this guy with a hat said he had a ranch in New Jersey and off she goes, and with Harriet. Harriet"s our daughter. She"s going to be three. She says it free, free,though. I doubt now the kid"ll ever say a single t-h t-h her whole life. And I don"t even know where in New Jersey. Does New Jersey even have ranches? I"d been in school with her since grade school. Mildred. We were like childhood sweethearts. And then this guy who got her old cot at the shelter I got lice from. He moves into her cot and then I start to get lice. I was still trying to deliver ice to machines at gas stations. Who wouldn"t have to get high just to stand it?" her whole life. And I don"t even know where in New Jersey. Does New Jersey even have ranches? I"d been in school with her since grade school. Mildred. We were like childhood sweethearts. And then this guy who got her old cot at the shelter I got lice from. He moves into her cot and then I start to get lice. I was still trying to deliver ice to machines at gas stations. Who wouldn"t have to get high just to stand it?"
"So this purports to be a disease, alcoholism? A disease like a cold? Or like cancer? I have to tell you, I have never heard of anyone being told to pray for relief from cancer. Outside maybe certain very rural parts of the American South, that is. So what is this? You"re ordering ordering me to pray? Because I allegedly have a disease? I dismantle my life and career and enter nine months of low-income treatment for a me to pray? Because I allegedly have a disease? I dismantle my life and career and enter nine months of low-income treatment for a disease, disease, and I"m prescribed prayer? Does the word and I"m prescribed prayer? Does the word retrograde retrograde signify? Am I in a sociohistorical era I don"t know about? What exactly is the story here?" signify? Am I in a sociohistorical era I don"t know about? What exactly is the story here?"
"Fine, fine. Fine. Just completely fine. No problem at all. Happy to be here. Feeling better. Sleeping better. Love the chow. In a word, couldn"t be finer. The grinding? The tooth-grinding? A tic. A jaw-strengthener. Expression of all-around fineness. Likewise the thing with the eyelid."
"But I did too too try. I been trying all try. I been trying all month. month. I been on four interviews. They didn"t none of them start till 11, and I"m like what"s the point get up early sit around here I don"t have to be down there till 11? I filled out applications I been on four interviews. They didn"t none of them start till 11, and I"m like what"s the point get up early sit around here I don"t have to be down there till 11? I filled out applications ever everday. Where"m I suppose to go? You can"t kick me out just for the moth- they don"t call me back if I"m trying. trying. Snot my Snot my fault. fault. Go on and ask Clenette. Ask that Thrale girl and them if I ain"t been trying. You Go on and ask Clenette. Ask that Thrale girl and them if I ain"t been trying. You can"t. can"t. This is just so This is just so f.u.c.ked up. f.u.c.ked up.
"I said said where"m I suppose to where"m I suppose to go go to?" to?"
"I"m on a month"s Full-House Restriction for using freaking mouthwash? Newsflash: news bulletin: mouthwash is for spitting out! It"s like 2% proof!"
"It"s about somebody else else"s farting, why I"m here."
"I"ll gladly identify myself if you"ll first simply explain what it is I"m identifying myself as. as. This is my position. You"re requiring me to attest to facts I do not possess. The term for this is "duress." " This is my position. You"re requiring me to attest to facts I do not possess. The term for this is "duress." "
"So my offense is what, misdemeanor gargling?"
"I"ll come back when you"re free."
"It"s back. For a second there I hoped. I had hope. Then there it was again."
"First just let me say one thing."
LATE OCTOBER.
YEAR OF THE DEPEND ADULT UNDERGARMENT.
"Open me anothowone of those boy and I"ll tell you the highlight of that season of my season tickets was I got to see that incwedible son of a b.i.t.c.h set his fiwst wecord in the flesh. It was y"bwother"s Cub Scout twoop outing you wouldn"t join because I wemember this you w"afwaid you"d lose the online time in fwont of the TP. Wemember? Well I"ll always wemember this one day, boy. It was against Sywacuse, what, eight seasons back. The little son of a b.i.t.c.h had a long of seventy-thwee that day and a avewage of sixty-fwigging-nine. Seventy-thwee Seventy-thwee for Chwist"s sake. Open me anothowone, boy, use the exowcise. I wecall the sky was cloudy. When he punted you spent a weal long time studying the sky. They weally hung. He had a long hang-time of eight-point-thwee seconds that day. That"s sewious hanging, boy. Me I nevewit five in my day. Chwist. The whole twoop said they never heawd anything like the sound of the son of a b.i.t.c.h"s seventy-thwee. Won Wichardson, you wemember Wonnie, the twoop-leadawhateva, petwoleum jelly salesman outta Bwookline, Wonnie"s a wetired pilot from the Sewvice, from a bomma-squadwon, Wonnie we"s down at t"pub that night Wonnie says he says that seventy-thwee sounded just like f.u.c.king for Chwist"s sake. Open me anothowone, boy, use the exowcise. I wecall the sky was cloudy. When he punted you spent a weal long time studying the sky. They weally hung. He had a long hang-time of eight-point-thwee seconds that day. That"s sewious hanging, boy. Me I nevewit five in my day. Chwist. The whole twoop said they never heawd anything like the sound of the son of a b.i.t.c.h"s seventy-thwee. Won Wichardson, you wemember Wonnie, the twoop-leadawhateva, petwoleum jelly salesman outta Bwookline, Wonnie"s a wetired pilot from the Sewvice, from a bomma-squadwon, Wonnie we"s down at t"pub that night Wonnie says he says that seventy-thwee sounded just like f.u.c.king bombs bombs sounded, that kind of cwacking WHUMP, when they hit, to the boys in the squadwon in the planes when they let them go." sounded, that kind of cwacking WHUMP, when they hit, to the boys in the squadwon in the planes when they let them go."
The radio show right before Madame Psychosis"s midnight show on M.I.T."s semi-underground WYYY is "Those Were the Legends That Formerly Were," one of those cruel tech-collegiate formats where any U.S. student who wants to can dart over from the super-collider lab or the Fourier Transforms study group for fifteen minutes and read on-air some parodic thing where he"d pretend to be his own dad apotheosizing some sort of thick-necked historic athletic figure the dad"d admired and had by implication compared with woeful distaste to the pencil-necked big-headed asthmatic little kid staring up through c.o.ke-bottle lenses from his digital keyboard. The show"s only rule is that you have to read your thing in the voice of some really silly cartoon character. There are other, rather more exotic patricidal formats for Asian, Latin, Arab, and European students on select weekend evenings. The consensus is Asian cartoon characters have the silliest voices.
Albeit literally soph.o.m.oric, "Those Were the Legends..." is a useful drama-therapy-type catharsis-op - M.I.T. students tend to carry their own special psychic scars: nerd, geek, dweeb, wonk, f.a.g, wienie, four-eyes, spazola, limp-d.i.c.k, needle-d.i.c.k, d.i.c.kless, d.i.c.k-nose, pencil-neck; getting your violin or laptop TP or entomologist"s kill-jar broken over your large head by thick-necked kids on the playground - and the show pulls down solid FM ratings, though a lot of that"s due to reverse-inertia, a Newton"s-II-like backward shove from the rabidly popular Madame Psychosis Hour, MF 0000h.0100h., which it precedes.
Y.D.A.U."s WYYY late-shift student engineer, unfond of any elevator that follows a serpentine or vascular path, eschews the M.I.T. Student Union"s elevator. He has an arrival routine where he skips the front entrances and comes in through the south side"s acoustic meatus and gets a Millennial Fizzy out of the vending machine in the sephenoid sinus, then descends creaky back wooden stairs from the Ma.s.sa Intermedia"s Reading Room down to about the Infundibular Recess, past the out of the vending machine in the sephenoid sinus, then descends creaky back wooden stairs from the Ma.s.sa Intermedia"s Reading Room down to about the Infundibular Recess, past the Tech Talk Daily Tech Talk DailyCD-ROM student paper"s production floor and the sick chemical smell of the Read-Only cartridge-press"s developer, down past the epiglottal Hillel Club"s dark and star-doored HQ, past the heavier door to the tiled lattice of hallways to the squash and racquetball courts and one volleyball court and the airy corpus callosum of 24 high-ceiling tennis courts endowed by an M.I.T. alum and now so little used they don"t even know now where the nets are, down three more levels to the ghostly-clean and lithium-lit studios of FM 109WYYY FM, broadcasting for the M.I.T. community and selected points beyond. The studio"s walls are pink and laryngeally fissured. His asthma"s better down here, the air thin and keen, the tracheal air-filters just below the flooring and the ventilators" air the freshest in the Union.
The engineer, a work-study graduate student with bad lungs and occluded pores, settles alone at his panel in the engineer"s booth, adjusts a couple needles" bob, and sound-checks the only paid personality on the nightly docket, the darkly revered Madame Psychosis, whose cameo shadow is just visible outside the booth"s thick gla.s.s, her screen half- obscuring the on-air studio"s bank of phones, checking cueing and transition for the Thursday edition. She is hidden from all view by a jointed trip-tych screen of cream chiffon that glows red and green in the lights of the phone bank and the cueing panel"s dials and frames her silhouette. Her silhouette is cleanly limned against the screen, sitting cross-legged in its insectile microphonic headset, smoking. The engineer always has to tighten his own headset"s cranial band down from the "Those Were" engineer"s mammoth parietal breadth. He activates the intercom and offers to check Madame Psychosis"s levels. He requests sound. Anything at all. He hasn"t opened his can of pop. There is a long silence during which Madame Psychosis"s silhouette doesn"t look up from something she looks like she"s collating at her little desk.
After a while she makes some little sounds, little plosives to check for roaring sounds in exhalations, a perennial problem in low-budget FM.
She makes a long s s-sound.
The student engineer takes a hit from his portable inhaler.
She says "He liked that sort of dreamy, dreaming music that had the rhythm of long things swinging."
The engineer"s movements at the panel"s dials resemble someone adjusting the heater and sound system while driving.
"The Dow that can be told is not the eternal Dow," she says.
The engineer, age twenty-three, has extremely bad skin.
"Attractive paraplegic female seeks same; object:"
The windowless laryngeal studio is terribly bright. Nothing casts a shadow. Recessed-lit fluorescence with a dual-spectrum lithiumized corona, developed two buildings over and awaiting O.N.A.N. patent. The chilly shadowless light of surgical theaters, convenience stores at 0400. The pink wrinkled walls sometimes look more gynecological than anything else.
"Like most marriages, theirs was the evolved product of concordance and compromise."
The engineer shivers in the bright chill and lights a gasper of his own and tells Madame Psychosis through the intercom that the whole range of levels is fine. Madame Psychosis is the only WYYY personality who brings in her own headset and jacks, plus a triptych screen. Over the screen"s left section are four clocks set for different Zones, plus a numberless disk someone hung for a joke, to designate the annularized Great Concavity"s No-Time. The E.S.T. clock"s trackable hand carves off the last few seconds from the five minutes of dead air Madame Psychosis"s contract stipulates gets to precede her show. You can see her silhouette putting out the cigarette very methodically. She cues tonight"s synthesized b.u.mper and theme music; the engineer flicks a lever and pumps the music up the coaxial medulla and through the amps and boosters packed into the crawls.p.a.ces above the high false ceiling of the corpus callosum"s idle tennis courts and up and out the aerial that protrudes from the gray and bulbous surface of the Union"s roof. Inst.i.tutional design has come a ways from I. M. Pei. M.I.T."s near-new Student Union, off the corner of Ames and Memorial Dr., 60 60 East Cambridge, is one enormous cerebral cortex of reinforced concrete and polymer compounds. Madame Psychosis is smoking again, listening, head c.o.c.ked. Her tall screen will leak smoke for her show"s whole hour. The student engineer is counting down from five on an outstretched hand he can"t see how she sees. And as pinkie meets palm, she says what she"s said for three years of midnights, an opening bit that Mario Incandenza, the least cynical person in the history of Enfield MA, across the river, listening faithfully, finds, for all its black cynicism, terribly compelling: East Cambridge, is one enormous cerebral cortex of reinforced concrete and polymer compounds. Madame Psychosis is smoking again, listening, head c.o.c.ked. Her tall screen will leak smoke for her show"s whole hour. The student engineer is counting down from five on an outstretched hand he can"t see how she sees. And as pinkie meets palm, she says what she"s said for three years of midnights, an opening bit that Mario Incandenza, the least cynical person in the history of Enfield MA, across the river, listening faithfully, finds, for all its black cynicism, terribly compelling: Her silhouette leans and says "And Lo, for the Earth was empty of form, and void.
"And Darkness was all over the Face of the Deep.
"And We said: "Look at that f.u.c.ker Dance. Dance."
A toneless male voice is then cued in to say It"s Sixty Minutes More Or Less With Madame Psychosis On YYY-109, Largest Whole Prime On The FM Band. The different sounds are encoded and pumped by the student engineer up through the building"s corpus and out the roof"s aerial. This aerial, low-watt, has been rigged by the station"s EM-wienies to tilt and spin, not unlike a centrifugal theme-park-type ride, spraying the signal in all directions. Since the B.S. 1966 Hundt Act, the low-watt fringes of the FM band are the only part of the Wireless Spectrum still licensed for public broadcast. The deep-water green of FM tuners all over the campus"s labs and dorms and barnacled clots of grad apartments align themselves slowly toward the spatter"s center, moving toward the dial"s right, a little creepily, like plants toward light they can"t even see. Ratings are minor-league by the pre-InterLace broadcast standards of yore, but they are rock-solid consistent. Audience demand for Madame Psychosis has been, from the very start, inelastic. The aerial, inclined at about the angle of a 3-km. cannon, spins in a blurred ellipse - its rotary base is elliptical because that"s the only shape the EM-wienies could rig a mold for. Obstructed on all sides by the tall buildings of East Cambridge and Commercial Drive and serious Downtown, though, only a couple thin pie-slices of signal escape M.I.T. proper, e.g. through the P.E.-Dept. gap of barely used lacrosse and soccer fields between the Philology and Low-Temp Physics complexes on Mem. Dr. and then across the florid-purple nighttime breadth of the historic Charles River, then through the heavy flow of traffic on Storrow Dr. on the Chuck"s other side, so that by the time the signal laps at upper Brighton and Enfield you need almost surveillance-grade antennation to filter it in out of the EM-miasma of cellular and interconsole phone transmissions and TPs" EM-auras that crowd the FM fringes from every side. Unless, that is, your tuner is lucky enough to be located at the apex of a tall and more or less denuded hill, in Enfield, in which case you find yourself right in YYY"s centrifugal line of fire.