Pages 550–553
"LATE P.M. MONDAY 9 NOVEMBER" — note the date: the book has stepped back a day from the dossier pages, to the evening before the Tavis-office discipline meeting you read at pp. 508–527. Pemulis, dressed in a deliberately awful thrift ensemble, prowls the dark Comm.-Ad. building during mandatory Study Period, sampling what's audible through its closed doors — and then walks through the one doorway that has no door. Everyone here you know: Pemulis, Stice and Rusk (overheard), Tavis (overheard), John Wayne, and Avril Incandenza.
Terms, in order of appearance
- counterphobia (p. 550) — real psychoanalytic term: compulsively seeking out what you fear; Rusk's diagnosis-of-the-evening.
- G.I. Joe / Barbie (p. 551) — the real toys, run through Rusk's Oedipal jargon-mill at unstoppable length.
- Wallabies (p. 551) — real Clarks gum-soled shoes; the brother's, like most of the outfit.
- StairBlaster (p. 552) — the stair-climbing machine from endnote 220; Tavis's, audible through his cracked inner door.
- three-point stance (p. 552) — real football: crouched, weight on one down hand, ready to fire out.
After you read: three things
1. The helping professions, overheard. Behind her door Rusk diagnoses Stice's "counterphobia" in runaway toy-based jargon while Stice — voice cracking — keeps trying to tell her "something about his bed," and gets "Fear of linoleum?" for his trouble (pp. 550–551). Behind his door Tavis rides the StairBlaster alone, chanting either "Total worry total worry" or "No don't worry no don't worry." Nobody in this building is listening to anybody; Pemulis is listening to everybody.
2. The tableau. In the blazing doorless office: John Wayne in football helmet, shoulder pads, jockstrap, and nothing else, growling in a three-point stance; Avril — "Hal's Mumsly-Wumsly" — mid-near-split in a cheerleader outfit, miming a pellet-less whistle (pp. 552–553). Register the costume grammar: football is not Wayne's sport, but it is the career of a certain absent Incandenza son. And note the narration's one-line time-dilation: "way less time passing in the office than there seemed to be."
3. What Pemulis does with it. No outrage, no retreat: "I probably won't even waste everybody's time asking if I'm interrupting," then — hands folded schoolboy-style — "I predict this'll take about two minutes at most," smiling (p. 553). Wayne dresses "with no little dignity"; Avril holds her split. Pemulis has walked out with the E.T.A. economy's hardest currency, and now you can re-read his position in the next morning's waiting room (pp. 508–527) knowing what he's holding.
Written only from this scene and earlier pages. Safe to read before you start.