Pages 142–144

3 November Y.D.A.U. — phone calls · first-time reader guide · all scenes

When you've finished these pages: three things worth a second look, at the bottom.

This one is a document, not a scene: the complete text of a magazine article, preceded by an all-caps editorial headnote that tells you what you're holding. The putative author is "Helen" Steeply — same surname, same electrolysis rash, as the enormous U.S. operative in a dress on the Arizona mountainside (pp. 87 onward) — and the headnote dates the piece 10 August, Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment. The article itself, about a stolen artificial heart, is written in gushing human-interest sob-prose; the badness is deliberate, a magazine being parodied to the syllable. One flat heads-up: the headnote mentions, in passing, how Hal's father died.

Terms, in order of appearance

soft profile (p. 142) — journalism argot: a flattering, unaggressive celebrity feature; the headnote says Steeply's next assignment is one, on Orin Incandenza.
Jarvik IX Exterior Artificial Heart (p. 142) — fictional successor to the real Jarvik series of artificial hearts; this model rides outside the body, in a purse.
restenosis (p. 142) — real cardiology term: a treated vessel re-narrowing; the same disease Marathe's wife is dying of (p. 126).
Moment (p. 142) — the glossy magazine putatively running the piece; much given to praising its own "searching and fearless journalistic doggedness."
Etienne Aigner (p. 143) — real luxury leather-goods label; the heart's carrying case is a designer purse.
Harvard Square (p. 143) — real Cambridge shopping district; the working turf of yrstruly's crew on pp. 128–130.
Copley Square / Boston Public Library (p. 144) — real Boston landmarks; "the library at Copley" was the crew's needle-stash stop on p. 129.

After you read: three things

1. The headnote does the real work (p. 142). Its scare quotes — 'JOURNALIST,' 'HELEN,' "putative" twice — flag the document as manufactured: a planted clipping that makes Steeply's cover identity a real byline, ahead of a "soft profile" of Phoenix Cardinals punter Orin J. Incandenza, the brother you last saw showering in Phoenix (pp. 42–47). And mid-sentence, as bare apposition, it states that James O. Incandenza "took his own life by putting his head in a microwave oven" — the first time the book says how.

2. You can name the unnamed purse snatcher. The article knows him only as a transvestite drug addict in a "strapless cocktail dress, spike heels, tattered feather boa, and auburn wig" (p. 143). Heels and a ratty feather boa were last seen on Poor Tony, of yrstruly's crew (pp. 128–135), whose turf was exactly this Square. The article never makes the connection; it's yours to make.

3. A dead cliché turns literal, and nobody moves. The victim chases her own beating heart shouting "Stop her! She stole my heart!" — and passers-by smile knowingly at what they take for a lovers' quarrel, while two patrolmen quip "Happens all the time" (pp. 143–144). Spectators reading a dying woman as a scene to be appraised: you watched the same thing on p. 131, when a man went down by the swing sets and no one moved.

Written only from this scene and earlier pages. Safe to read before you start.