Pages 171–176

Winter, B.S. 1960 — a father's monologue · first-time reader guide · all scenes

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

Another document: the complete voice-over of an 11.5-minute cartridge, "Tennis and the Feral Prodigy," narrated by Hal and — "ACCORDING TO THE ENTRY FORM" — written by Mario, who directed, recorded, and edited it; it took regional honorable mention in a young-filmmakers' contest almost exactly three years after James O. Incandenza's death, per the title block. What follows is a litany of second-person instructions — "Here is how to…", "Please learn to…" — for assembling a junior tennis prodigy at E.T.A. The how-to register is the whole formal game here: keep asking who the you is, and notice when the instructions stop being about tennis.

Terms, in order of appearance

Year of the Yushityu 2007… (p. 171) — the longest sponsored year-name yet: a Japanese motherboard upgrade; the "(SIC)" is the book's own.
Schnell (p. 173) — German: "fast!" — Schtitt's bark from the truck during squad-jogs.
Hills of Heartbreak (p. 173) — real: Heartbreak Hill, the Boston Marathon's famous Newton climb, just up Commonwealth Avenue.
formants and fricatives, trochaically stressed (p. 174) — real linguistics: vowel resonances, hissing consonants, DUM-da rhythm — a phrase chanted into meaninglessness.
Lemon Pledge (p. 174) — real furniture polish; E.T.A. folklore rates it the ultimate sunscreen, until you sweat.
8½ (p. 174) — real: Federico Fellini's 1963 film about a creatively blocked director; the turned-down date is a revival showing.
O.E.D. (p. 174) — real: the Oxford English Dictionary, all twenty volumes; the mother reads it aloud at bedtime.
"Learn to care and not to care" (p. 175) — unmarked lift from a real poem, T. S. Eliot's Ash-Wednesday: "Teach us to care and not to care."
Dunlop, Inc. (p. 175) — real racquet-and-gear maker; sponsorship arrives with logos, contingent on rank.

After you read: three things

1. The keys (p. 172). The serve drill: a set of keys a stride into the court, so the server falls forward and scoops them up — "You still, years after the man's death, cannot keep your keys anywhere but on the floor." One page ago (p. 171), Hal waited by the phone with "his keys on their neck-chain" lying on the carpet by his shoe. The habit you just watched gets its origin story immediately, unannounced.

2. The middle is a family diagnosis (pp. 173–174). Himself, arm around the boy, relays that "his own father had told him that talent is sort of a dark gift… either lived up to or lost" — nearly word for word the flask speech you heard in the Tucson garage (p. 168). Then: a father whose father lost it, a father who surpassed every expectation "and didn't seem just a whole hell of a lot happier," leaving the narrator "feral and flux-ridden." The monologue's third generation is speaking.

3. Watch the cheerful how-to flash its fear. "Expect some rough dreams… Keep a flashlight by your bed. It helps with the dreams." "Be no one. / It is easier than you think." "Never tell anyone where you are. / This is also how not to fear sleep or dreams." And the close: opponents as mirrors, the Game as "managed fear," and a pharmacy that ends with "extracurriculars for your folks, who just wanted to make sure you didn't miss anything they got." The format is a joke; the contents mostly aren't.

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