Pages 795–808

E.T.A., Ennet House, and the A.F.R., cross-cut · first-time reader guide · all scenes

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

Evening of the same 17 November. Hal rushes his afternoon matches, skips supper, and secretly drives E.T.A.'s tow truck fifty clicks out Route 9 to Natick, to a windowless room 32A at a facility called Quabbin Recovery Systems — scouting, he thinks, a Narcotics Anonymous-type meeting. The narration is back with Hal in close third person, and the tense starts drifting into the present as the evening gets away from him. The men he finds there — group leader Harv, mild Jim with the yogurt, and the sobbing Kevin Bain — are all first appearances.

Terms, in order of appearance

Abandoned All Hope (p. 796) — Hal's capitalized coinage for quitting daily Bob Hope cold; endnote 334 glosses it.
Kodiak (p. 797) — real smokeless chewing tobacco; hence the spit cup riding along.
Lens & Pane (p. 798) — glazier's trade journal; Himself once repudiated smoked mirrored glass like Q.R.S.'s in its pages.
"like Philip Glass on Quaaludes" (p. 802) — Glass: real minimalist composer; Quaaludes: real 1970s sedative. The room's ambient CD.
Kevin Bain (p. 804) — of Dedham; older brother of Marlon Bain, Orin's old doubles partner; arcade money (endnote 335 on what killed the arcades).
kertwanged (p. 804) — E.T.A. slang: stitched up, done dirty.
in loco parentis (p. 806) — Latin, real legal phrase: standing in a parent's place.
"Block That Kick!" (p. 807) — real American pep-rally chant; the group's needs-chant borrows its meter.
"I Don't Know (How to Love Him)" (p. 808) — real number from Jesus Christ Superstar, here all-cello; the opera Lyle plays at night.

After you read: three things

1. The errand connects to the morning — and misfires. The meeting comes from the schedule "The Ennet House had given him" (p. 796) — hear the outsider's The that endnote 323 just taught you — borrowed at the door on pp. 785–787. But the booklet's cover date is two years stale, and room 32A is not NA: it's an Inner-Infant men's group, bearded men cross-legged in socks, each clutching an identical teddy bear by the throat. Hal suspects he's been "kertwanged." He still can't make himself leave.

2. Why he came: the head, not the substance. Since he "abruptly Abandoned All Hope," his own mind has been "having at him like a well-revved chain-saw all day"; he rehearses "My name's Mike" into the rearview mirror on the drive. Then watch the ironist's one fully sincere act of the evening: "the first really desperate and sincere prayer Hal can remember offering" since footed pajamas — and it's a prayer not to be recognized.

3. Kevin Bain's crawl. The focal member begging his smooshed parents to come hold him turns out to be a Bain — and Hal, held and dandled and loudly loved through infancy, catches himself envying a man with parents to blame: being "held and told you were loved didn't automatically seem like it rendered you emotionally whole or Substance-free." The scene ends in future tense, on the image Hal will keep: Kevin Bain crossing the room to his needs-meeter on all fours, "his face unspeakable."

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