Pages 176–181

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.

A title block, then pure transcript: two hours of walk-in office visits at Ennet House, the halfway facility down the hill from E.T.A., Wednesday 4 November, Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment. The listener is Pat Montesian, the House's executive director — her first appearance, and you never hear her: only the residents' sides are recorded, a dozen-plus monologues separated by section breaks. The dialects and broken syntax are rendered exactly as spoken, on purpose; nothing is transcribed wrong. Fair warning, one four-line visit asks, politely, about wanting to hang yourself.

Terms, in order of appearance

C.S.A.C. (p. 176) — counselor certification initials after Pat's name; endnote 58 expands them.
Restriction / Overnight (p. 177) — House discipline argot: privileges revoked; an approved night away, logged and pre-cleared.
Higher Power (p. 177) — AA's term for God as each member chooses to understand God.
Kemp and Limbaugh administrations (p. 177) — real people, invented presidencies: the book's recent U.S. history runs slightly alternate.
formication (p. 177) — real medical term, "with an m": the crawling-insects skin sensation common in withdrawal.
Percocet (p. 178) — real prescription opioid painkiller; endnote 59 rides it.
bashing / the Fenway (p. 178) — bashing here means gay-bashing; the Fenway is a real Boston district.
Pine Street (p. 180) — real: Boston's biggest homeless shelter, the Pine Street Inn.

After you read: three things

1. The missing half is the scene's shape. Every speaker is answering, arguing with, or pleading against replies you never get to read. The range runs from pudding theft and "misdemeanor gargling" to the unnamed resident who is "awful sorry to bother" about the hanging-yourself prayer, and the one who says "Fine, fine. Fine…. The grinding? … Expression of all-around fineness." Farce and anguish arrive in identical formatting; sorting them is your job, as it is Pat's.

2. Watch logic get nowhere (pp. 177, 180–181). The attorney's deposition — "I cannot deny what I don't understand. This is my position" — and the disease-skeptic's "I'm prescribed prayer? Does the word retrograde signify?" are both, as arguments, perfectly valid. The transcript neither refutes nor rewards them; they simply hang there among people who can't stop. Notice how the House's clichés and these polished objections just talk past each other.

3. Old names keep surfacing without introductions. "Gately and Diehl had to pull the fork out" (p. 178) — Gately, last seen mid-burglary on pp. 55–60, is evidently living here. The long harelip-and-snakes monologue (pp. 179–180) — Doocey, Mildred, little Harriet — retells, from the inside, the trailer household you met on pp. 39–40; the speaker never gives his name, but you can supply it. And the final visitor says "Go on and ask Clenette" — the name from p. 37. Threads are converging on this house.

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