Schtitt and Mario hang out
Schtitt talks, Mario listens, generally. Mario is basically a born listener. One of the positives to being visibly damaged is that people can sometimes forget you’re there, even when they’re interfacing with you. You almost get to eavesdrop. It’s almost like they’re like: If nobody’s really in there, there’s nothing to be shy about. That’s why bullshit often tends to drop away around damaged listeners, deep beliefs revealed, diary-type private reveries indulged out loud; and, listening, the beaming and bradykinetic boy gets to forge an interpersonal connection he knows only he can truly feel, here.
Context
Evening pipe-smoke sessions behind the Headmaster's House: the book's damage-as-aperture doctrine stated outright. Visible damage makes people forget you're a person — "If nobody's really in there" is the exact presumption Hal's "I am in here" fights — and Mario converts the erasure into access: truth drops its guard around him all novel long. The last clause quietly bills the cost: the connection is one only he can feel.