Gately, the wraith, and the figurants — "But he can’t for the life…"
But he can’t for the life of him remember doing more than trying to hear, and the sheer cerebral stress of trying to force a more noble memory should have awakened him, on top of the dextral hurt; but he doesn’t come all the way awake in the big crib until the memory’s realistic dream bleeds into a nasty fictional dream where he’s wearing Lenz’s worsted topcoat and leaning very precisely and carefully over the prone figure of the Hawaiian-dressed Nuck whose head he’s whacked repeatedly against the hood’s windshield, he’s supporting his inclined weight on his good left hand against the warm throbbing hood, bent in real close to the maimed head, his ear to the bleeding face, listening very intently. The head opens its red mouth.
Context
The book names its own dream-taxonomy — "the memory's realistic dream bleeds into a nasty fictional dream" — and then delivers the theme's most terrible splice: boy-Gately's ear-to-the-fly listening posture (the M.P.'s fly-maiming lesson, just re-dreamed at p. 842) transposed onto the Nuck he demapped, in Lenz's coat, the maimed thing about to scream at last. Four words of pure nightmare to end it. "the hood's windshield" as written.