Pages 854–864
Out of the Death-dream and back into the Trauma Wing: Gately wakes to the real, veiled Joelle van Dyne swabbing his forehead — borrowed sweatpants, brocaded blouse, contraband brownies from Morris H. A gray, windy hospital morning; the two of them alone (the second bed now empty), Gately still mute, though his exploring left hand makes a discovery about why that cheers him considerably. For one paragraph the narration slips from his perception into hers — deliberate, and worth noticing when it happens.
Terms, in order of appearance
- hulpil (p. 854) — the text's spelling of huipil, the real embroidered Central American blouse.
- "And Lo" (p. 854) — her old Madame Psychosis radio tic (pp. 181ff), said several times to amuse him.
- St. Columbkill's (p. 856) — endnote 348: a real R.C. church just off Brighton Center; last night's AA meeting.
- jimson (p. 857) — jimsonweed, real toxic-hallucinogenic plant; "drunk as a cock on jimson" is the Kentucky speaker's phrase.
- Evel Knievel (p. 858) — real 1970s motorcycle daredevil, jumper of lined-up cars and trucks.
- Kicking the Bird (p. 859) — street idiom: going through cold-turkey withdrawal.
- SINISTRAL (p. 862) — left-handed; the capitalized delivery inside Gately's head matches the word-floods of pp. 832ff.
- 13th-Stepping (p. 863) — endnote 351: Step One plus Step Twelve — "My Life Is Unmanageable and I'd Like to Share It With You."
After you read: three things
1. A double romanticization, corrected on the page. Joelle sees a man "heroic or even romantic... unshaven and intubated, huge and helpless," wounded in service and refusing narcotics; Gately, being admired, feels newly there. Then the narrator steps flatly in: newcomers always romanticize the longer-sober, who are really "clueless and terrified and just muddling through" — "(except maybe the fucking Crocodiles)." In the same slipped paragraph you get Joelle's own spare version of Orin — who "left and wouldn't even face up to why" — her side of the triangle Notkin retailed luridly on pp. 788–795.
2. Two teachings converge from opposite ends of sobriety. Joelle's podium insight: her NEVER AGAIN day-counting made quitting a stunt-jump — "each day was a car Knievel had to clear," hundreds accumulating, impossible — versus "I can do this for one endless day. I can. Don." (her his name spoken plainly). Gately silently matches it with his 92 days Kicking the Bird in a Revere Holding cell — the A.D.A.'s doing, note — where he lived in the space between heartbeats, "An endless Now stretching its gull-wings out on either side of his heartbeat." Then the generalization that reorganizes his whole situation: the pain, even the hat in the hallway, can be endured one instant at a time, because "everything unendurable was in the head."
3. The audit at the end. Gately's head runs the addict's instant matrimony — porch swing, veiled bride, the honeymoon-unveiling dread (the Churchill-face imported straight from pp. 846–847; endnote 350 reverses the fear onto his own body) — and he catches himself: seducing a newcomer is 13th-Stepping, "almost tantamount to rape, is the Boston consensus," and his vividest fantasies are really about "somebody else to take care of his mess... the same delusion as the basic addictive-Substance-delusion, basically." His eyes roll up in disgust, and stay there.
Written only from this scene and earlier pages. Safe to read before you start.