the interior nobody in the room can see

While the room busts his chops with the name-chorus, Halster, Halorama, Halation, Hal sits sealed inside a completely different and invisible experience: simple gratitude at being able to breathe. The ribbing is aimed at a prodigy-persona none of them can see past, and the actual boy underneath is somewhere else entirely, thinking about air. The gap between the Hal they are addressing and the Hal doing the thinking is quiet here, half-nasty and affectionate, but it is the same gap the book opens with.