the addict's second-truest relationship
Gately’s after all a fucking drug addict, and a drug addict’s second most meaningful relationship is always with his domestic entertainment unit, TV/VCR or HDTP. A drug addict’s maybe the only human species whose own personal vision has a Vertical Hold
Context
The substance and the screen named as the same anesthetic in two forms: the addict's second-closest bond is to the entertainment unit, and the joke — that his vision has a Vertical Hold — is the whole diagnosis, a person tuned like a television, watching to not-be-present. It is the seam the neighbor theme routes here: the drug-addicted relationship to being Entertained is continuous with the drug, both of them ways of holding the world at one remove.