Hal in V.R. 6 with Wave Bye-Bye — "Bob-Hopeless, Hal spits way more than…"
Bob-Hopeless, Hal spits way more than is his norm, now, and also likes having the wastecan right nearby in case he might throw up. That afternoon he’d had zilch in the way of a kinesthetic sense: he couldn’t feel the ball on his stick. His nausea has nothing to do with watching his father’s cartridges.
Context
The somatic track of Hal's slide, with the pun doing diagnostic work: "Bob-Hopeless" — off the Bob Hope, and hopeless. The lost kinesthesia is anhedonia's athletic version: the one channel through which Hal reliably felt anything has gone numb. The narrator's dry denial about the nausea's cause invites exactly the reading it forecloses.